gagement until the next morning, and, when the news of the fighting was finally brought to him, there was not left sufficient daylight for him to make the dispositions that might have prevented the action from being a disappointment to him and to the people of the North. The next day Bragg fell back, and soon afterwards took up his march southward. Buell's pursuit was not vigorous. He failed to overtake the Confederates and bring them to battle, but he drove them out of Kentucky.1

"I congratulate you and all concerned in your recent battles and victories," telegraphed Lincoln, October 8, to Grant, referring to the repulse of the Confederates' attack on Corinth (October 3, 4) in the Department of Tennessee, which was under the command of Grant. This was a diversion in favor of Bragg to prevent reinforcements from being sent to Buell. The fighting had been directed by W. S. Rosecrans, for neither duty nor any exigency had called Grant to Corinth. As Grant had not emerged from the cloud which had obscured him since Shiloh, this victory brought Rosecrans before the government and the public as the possible great general looked for.5

"The rapid march of your army from Louisville, and your victory at Perryville," telegraphed Halleck to Buell, "has

1 My authorities for this account are the reports of Buell, Bragg, McCook, Rousseau, and Sheridan, the findings of the Buell commission and accompanying documents, O. R., vol. xvi. part i.; the Correspondence in part ii.; Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vi.; W. M. Polk, Life of Leonidas Polk, vol. ii.; Fry, The Army under Buell; J. D. Cox's review of the same, The Nation, Oct. 2, 1884; Cist, The Army of the Cumberland; Van Horne, The Army of the Cumberland; articles of Wheeler, Buell, and Gilbert, Century War Book, vol. iii.; Shaler, Kentucky; Moore, Reb. Rec., vol. v.; Pollard, Second Year of the War; Davis, Confederate Government.

2 Corinth was in Mississippi. See vol. iii. p. 628.

Grant had already sent Buell two divisions, which reached him Sept. 1-12.-O. R., vol. xvi. part i. p. 37.

4 See vol. iii. p. 627.

5 O. R., vol. xvii. part i. p. 154 et seq.; Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, vol. i. chap. xxix.; Grant to E. B. Washburne, Nov. 7, Grant letters edited by Wilson, p. 22.

In the same

given great satisfaction to the government." despatch he was urged to drive the enemy from East Tennessee. The next day the injunction, which was evidently put in Lincoln's own words, was more emphatic: "The capture of East Tennessee should be the main object of your campaign. You say it is the heart of the enemy's resources; make it the heart of yours. Your army can live there if the enemy's can. You must in a great measure live upon the country, paying for your supplies where proper, and levying contributions where necessary. I am directed by the President to say to you that your army must enter East Tennessee this fall, and that it ought to move there while the roads are passable. Once between the enemy and Nashville there will be no serious difficulty in reopening your communications with that place. He does not understand why we cannot march as the enemy marches, live as he lives, and fight as he fights, unless we admit the inferiority of our troops and of our generals." 2

The plan of living upon the country, although a favorite notion of the President, the Secretary of War, and the people of the North, was visionary. Lee could not do it in the rich country of Maryland, which before his invasion had been traversed by neither army. Bragg could not live in the bluegrass region of Kentucky when he had to concentrate his troops to confront Buell. "Why not . . . pursue the enemy into Mississippi, supporting your army on the country?" asked Halleck of Grant after the battle of Corinth. Grant, who never invented obstacles, promptly replied, “An army cannot subsist itself on the country except in forage; and for good military reasons no system was desirable which should promote pillage in the smallest degree.*

1 Oct. 18, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 623.

"3

2 Oct. 19, ibid., p. 626. The internal evidence that the language is Lincoln's is confirmed by the inclusion of this despatch, although signed by Halleck, in the Complete Works of Lincoln edited by Nicolay and Hay.

3 Oct. 8, O. R., vol. xvii. part i. p. 156.

On the pillage of Napoleon in his Italian campaign and its effect, see Lanfrey, tome i. pp. 83-85, 95, 96.

Buell was asked to live upon a country which had been supporting Confederate armies most of the summer and early autumn, in the face of a hostile force equal to his own. The thing was impossible, but the President had made up his mind that it ought to be tried. Therefore the common-sense, intelligent, and logical answer of Buell to his despatch must have been unsatisfactory if not irritating, and was probably interpreted as an excuse for slowness, a subterfuge to avoid incurring a fair military risk. Yet this would not of itself have caused the removal of the general, for the despatches make it clear that his fate hung for some hours in the balance. The additional influence necessary to turn the scale was furnished by Oliver P. Morton, governor of Indiana.

Morton was the ablest and most energetic of the war governors of the Western States. Since the national administration had been from the first dependent on the State machinery for furnishing troops and to some extent for their equipment, the governors of the Northern States were larger factors in the conduct of the war than is easily made to appear in a history where the aim is to secure unity in the narration of crowded events. Owing to the location of his State and the bitterness of the Democratic opposition, no governor had so many obstacles to surmount, and no one threw himself into the contest with more vigor and pertinacity. Wishing to see displayed in military affairs the same force which he put into the administration of his State, he made no secret of his contempt for the generalship of Buell, whom he even charged in his communications with Washington with being "a rebel sympathizer." Morton was personally incorrupt, but selected his coadjutors from the vulgar and the shifty, making his test of fitness for civil and military office personal devotion and unscrupulous obedience to himself rather than honesty and high character. He and Buell became enemies, and he held

1 Oct. 22, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 636; see Ropes's Civil War, part ii. p. 413.

it a duty to his country as well as an offering to his selfinterest to crush the man whom he could not use.1

October 21 Governor Morton telegraphed the President: "Bragg has escaped with his army into East Tennessee. The butchery of our troops at Perryville was terrible, and resulted from a large portion of the enemy being precipitated upon a small portion of ours. Sufficient time was thus gained by the enemy to enable them to escape. Nothing but success, speedy and decided, will save our cause from utter destruction. In the Northwest distrust and despair are seizing upon the hearts of the people." 2

Morton was backed by Governors Tod and Yates, whom Buell had offended by his lack of tact. The general was a strict disciplinarian, and lacked popularity with his soldiers, who were volunteers largely from Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. There was an interaction of opinion between the soldiers in the field and the people at home, so that the private letters written from the army and the editorials in the influential newspapers of the West were at one in their criticisms of him. All these manifestations of public opinion could not be disregarded by Lincoln. He craved popular support, and knew that the war could not go on long without it. Andrew Johnson, military governor of Tennessee, whose sturdy patriotism and brutal energy gave him influence with the President, was earnest for the displacement of Buell, while Stanton had been urging it for two months. The general himself had with magnanimity written that if it were deemed best to change the command of the army, now was a convenient time to do it.4 It is little wonder, then, that the President gave the word for his removal.5 Rosecrans was placed in command

1 J. D. Cox on Buell, The Nation, Oct. 2, 1884; The Army under Buell, Fry; Warden's Chase, pp. 496, 498; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography.

2 O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 634.

Of Ohio and Illinois.

4 Oct. 16.

The orders were issued Oct. 24. See the correspondence, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii.; also proceedings in the Buell commission, part i; Hollister, Life of

of the force, which now becomes known as the Army of the Cumberland.

The action of Rosecrans was a tribute to Buell's sagacity. Halleck urged him "to take and hold East Tennessee."1 It was impossible. He concentrated his troops at Nashville, a movement which the General-in-Chief had warned Buell not to make.2 In thirty-five days from his assumption of command, the government became impatient at his delay. December 4 Halleck telegraphed him, "If you remain one more week at Nashville, I cannot prevent your removal."3 Rosecrans replied immediately: I am trying to do "my whole duty. . . . To threats of removal or the like. I am insensible." He did not move from Nashville for twenty-two days, not until his preparations were complete, and he was not displaced. There is no reason whatever to believe that in the substitution of Rosecrans for Buell, aught was gained toward the capture of Chattanooga or the relief of the Unionists of East Tennessee.

The scene changes to the banks of the Potomac, the leading actor is McClellan, the action is much the same: the general did not take the aggressive promptly enough to satisfy the President and the people of the North. Among radical spirits prevailed distrust of the future, which in a private letter of Sydney Howard Gay, the managing editor of the New York Tribune, finds apt expression. "Smalley, "Smalley," he wrote, "has come back, and his notion is that it is to be quiet along the Potomac for some time to come. George [McClellan], whom Providence helps according to his nature, has got himself on one side of a ditch [the Potomac River], which Provi

Colfax, p. 199; J. D. Cox and Fry, hitherto cited. The injustice to Buell did not end with his removal. See remarks of Cox and Fry on the Buell commission and Buell's subsequent career. "I think Buell had genius enough for the highest commands." — Grant, J. R. Young, Around the World with Gen. Grant, vol. ii. p. 289.

1 Oct. 24, O. R., vol. xvi. part ii. p. 640.

3 Ibid., vol. xx. part ii. p. 113.

5 George W.

2 Ibid., p. 638.

4 Ibid.

6 From the army.