State. He was admittedly the best organizer in our entire army, and preeminently equipped as a defensive officer, and they assumed that his restoration to the command would bring in immense Democratic support to the Administration.

Lincoln's view of the matter is fully shown by the telegram which he sent in reply to the one from Colonel McClure urging McClellan's appointment.

WAR DEPARTMENT,

WASHINGTON CITY, June 30, 1863.

A. K. MCCLURE, Philadelphia:

Do we gain anything by opening one leak to stop another? Do we gain anything by quieting one clamor merely to open another, and probably a larger one? A. LINCOLN.

Three days after his appointment, Meade met Lee at Gettysburg, in Pennsylvania, and after three days of hard fighting defeated him. During these three terrible days-the Ist, 2d, and 3d of July-Mr. Lincoln spent most of his time in the telegraph office.

He read every telegram with the greatest eagerness,' says Mr. Chandler, "and frequently was so anxious that he would rise from his seat and come around and lean over my shoulder while I was translating the cipher. After the bat-. tle of Gettysburg, the President urged Meade to pursue Lee and engage him before he should cross the Potomac. His anxiety seemed as great as it had been during the battle itself, and now, as then, he walked up and down the floor, his face grave and anxious, wringing his hands and showing every sign of deep solicitude. As the telegrams came in, he traced the positions of the two armies on the map, and several times called me up to point out their location, seeming to feel the need of talking to some one. Finally, a telegram came from Meade saying that under such and such circumstances he would engage the enemy at such and such

a time. 'Yes,' said the President bitterly, he will be ready to fight a magnificent battle when there is no enemy there to fight!'"

Perhaps Lincoln never had a harder struggle to do what he thought to be just than he did after Meade allowed Lee to escape across the Potomac. He seems to have entertained a suspicion that the General wanted Lee to get away, for in a telegram to Simon Cameron, on July 15, he says: “I would give much to be relieved of the impression that Meade, Couch, Smith, and all, since the battle at Gettysburg, have striven only to get Lee over the river without another fight." The day before, he wrote Meade a letter in which he put frankly all his discontent:

My dear General, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee's escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely. If you could not safely attack Lee last Monday, how can you possibly do so south of the river, when you can take with you very few more than two-thirds of the force you then had in hand? It would be unreasonable to expect and I do not expect that you can now effect much. Your golden opportunity is gone, and I am distressed immeasurably because of it.

I beg you will not consider this a prosecution or persecution of yourself. As you had learned that I was dissatisfied, I have thought it best to kindly tell you why.*

He never sent the letter. Thinking it over, in his dispassionate way, he evidently concluded that it would not repair the misfortune and that it might dishearten the General. He smothered his regret, and went on patiently and loyally for many months in the support of his latest experiment.

But while in the East the President had been experiment*Abraham Lincoln. A History. By Nicolay and Hay.