The growing dislike of military service and the greater rewards at home for labor and business ability were constantly making it more difficult to get a sufficient number of the proper kind of men. Congress, the President, and the War Department did pretty well; perhaps as well as could be expected in a democracy where every man had an opinion and a vote, and at a time when the coming presidential election in the autumn could not be lost sight of; but the results fell far short of what would have been obtained had the Prussian system been possible. Nevertheless, the conscription went on with "few, if any, disturbances of the peace," "the people having learned to look upon the draft as a military necessity."1 The government, the States, the counties, and other political divisions were munificent in their offers of bounties, of which a salient example is seen in the advertisement of the New York County Volunteer Committee: "30,000 volunteers wanted. The following are the pecuniary inducements offered: County bounty, cash down, $300; State bounty, $75; United States bounty to new recruits, $302, additional to veteran soldiers, $100; "2 making totals, respectively, of $677 and $777 for service which would not exceed three years, was likely to be less, and turned out to be an active duty of little more than one year, besides the private soldier's pay of $163 per month with clothing and rations. The bounty in the county of New York was more than that generally paid throughout the country, although in some districts it was even higher. The system was bad, for it fostered a class of substitute brokers whose business was to get recruits, and whose aim was to earn their brokerage without any regard to the physical or moral quality of the men that they supplied." It brought into existence

1 Report of Provost-Marshal-General, p. 147.

2 N. Y. Times, Tribune, World, Feb. 13.

3 After May 1, 1864.

4 Report of Provost-Marshal-General, p. 214. Of course the United States bounty of $300 or $400 was the same all over the country.

5 "The system of recruiting which has recently been followed in this city is one of the greatest scandals of the war. It has been one of organized

the crime of bounty-jumping. Thieves, pickpockets, and vagabonds would enlist, take whatever bounty was paid in cash, desert when opportunity offered, change their names, go to another district or State, re-enlist, collect another bounty, desert again, and go on playing the same trick until they were caught, or until such chances of gain were no longer available. The Provost-Marshal-General stated in his final report that “A man now in the Albany penitentiary, undergoing an imprisonment of four years, confessed to having jumped the bounty' thirty-two times." 1 It was stated "that out of a detachment of 625 recruits sent to reinforce a New Hampshire regiment in the Army of the Potomac, 137 deserted on the passage, 82 to the enemy's picket line, and 36 to the rear, leaving but 370 men."2

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The wide extent of country, the feverish anxiety in each town and municipal ward to fill its quota, together with a certain lack of administrative system, made it difficult to detect the bounty-jumpers. But the evil of this method was appreciated. "For a shrewd people," wrote General Sherman to his brother, April 11, "we have less sense even than the Mexicans, paying fabulous bounties for a parcel of boys and old men, and swelling our muster rolls, but adding nothing to our real fighting strength."3 The mischief promoted by substitute brokers and bounty-jumping was seen at its worst in the large cities of the East, where it brought into the ranks a number of criminals, bullies, and vagrants; and as these came to be guarded as prisoners, many of them reached

pillage, resort being had to hocusing with narcotic poisons, threats, violence, false representations, and kidnapping in order to furnish victims to the bounty brokers and fill up the army with discontented and unfit men. Cripples, old men, mere boys, men laboring under incurable diseases and soldiers previously discharged for physical disability, form a great part of the recruits recently enlisted in this city."—N. Y. Tribune, Feb. 16. See also report of Assistant Provost-Marshal-General of Illinois, p. 28.

1 P. 153; also Reminiscences, J. D. Cox, MS.

2 Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1864, p. 37; see Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson, chap. i.

8 Sherman Letters, p. 227; see, also, p. 226.

the front. Yet not a large proportion of the recruits of 1864 were these social outcasts. In the country districts, villages, and smaller cities, the business ability of citizens who engaged voluntarily in the work of filling the respective quotas was brought to bear, with the result that attention was paid to the character of the men offering to serve; 2 and while the enlisted men were inferior physically, morally, and intellectually, to those who had gone into the ranks in 1861 and 1862, and were in great part mercenaries, they were to a considerable extent made up of sturdy men from Canada, and brawny immigrants continually arriving from Europe, who were tempted by the high wage offered for military service. Although the rank and file were deteriorating, the process of weeding out political generals, and those appointed to the lower commands by influence rather than by merit, left their places open to the better officers, who had further improved by the lessons of experience. "I will see," wrote General Sherman to his brother, April 5, "that by May 1st I have on the Tennessee one of the best armies in the world." The result of his campaign bore full testimony to the truth of this prophecy. Best of all, the North had developed four great generals, Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan, and in leaders was now superior to the South. In the deathgrapple, as the story will tell, Grant was matched against Lee, Sherman against Joseph E. Johnston, who had succeeded Bragg; and, except Lee and Johnston, no one in the Confederacy showed the same ability in the command of an independent army as Thomas, and no one else proved the equal of Sheridan, whose peculiar prowess must have made Lee many times regret bitterly the loss of Stonewall Jackson.

1 See Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson, chap. i.

2 Even in New York City an improvement was noted by the Tribune of Feb. 29: "Volunteering continues very brisk, Mr. Blunt having paid the bounty, on Saturday, to 265 men, most of whom were new recruits. The class of men now offering is very good, and many of them come from the interior of this, and from other States."

3 Sherman Letters, p. 226.

"In a military point of view, thank Heaven!" Motley wrote, "the coming man,' for whom we have so long been waiting, seems really to have come."1 Exactly so, thought the President, Congress, and the people. By an act of February 29, Congress revived the grade of Lieutenant-General, and authorized the President to place the General, whom he should so appoint, in command of the armies of the United States under his direction and during his pleasure. It was understood on all sides that the man whom the nation's representatives desired to honor and upon whom they wished to devolve the burden of military affairs was Grant. This action fell in with the ideas of Lincoln. From the first he would have been glad to have some general on whom he could rely, on whom he could throw the responsibility of military operations. Scott failed him, on account of the infirmities of age; McClellan lacked the requisite ability; and Halleck, who was likewise deficient, shrunk from the burden after the disaster to Pope, and became merely the President's chief-of-staff.2 It was a welcome function for him to send to the Senate at once the nomination of Grant as LieutenantGeneral. It was immediately confirmed.

Grant received orders from the department to report at Washington, and the day that he left Nashville to assume his new duties he wrote General Sherman a private letter, which brings into view the sublime friendship between these two soldiers, always marked by consideration and loyalty, and never to be alloyed with jealousy on the one side or envy on the other. Thus he wrote to his bosom companion-in-arms: "While I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I how much of this success is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious putting forth of that energy and skill, of

1 Dec. 29, 1863, Letters, vol. ii. p. 146.

2 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 122; Horace Porter, Century Magazine, Nov. 1896, p. 29; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 335; John Sherman in the Senate, Feb. 24.

those whom it has been my good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me. There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do. I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction. The word you I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also." 1

Sherman replied: "You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us so large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. .. You are now Washington's legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings who will award to you a large share for securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability. I repeat, you do General McPherson and myself too much honor. At Belmont you manifested your traits, neither of us being near; at Donelson also you illustrated your whole character. I was not near, and General McPherson in too subordinate a capacity to influence you. Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point; but that victory admitted the ray of light which I have followed ever since. I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic in your nature is the simple faith in success you have always manifested,

1 March 4, Sherman Memoirs, vol. i. p. 399.