laced it under command of General Fremont. But the choice
proved unfortunate. Fremont soon showed himself inefficient and
troublesome. At first the President endeavored to allay the local
bickerings; on September 9, 1861, he wrote to General Hunter: "General
Fremont needs assistance which it is difficult to give him. He is losing
the confidence of men near him.... His cardinal mistake is that he
isolates himself;... he does not know what is going on.... He needs to
have by his side a man of large experience. Will you not, for me, take
that place? Your rank is one grade too high;... but will you not serve
the country, and oblige me, by taking it voluntarily?" Kindly
consideration, however, was thrown away upon Fremont, whose self-esteem
was so great that he could not see that he ought to be grateful, or that
he must be subordinate. He owed his appointment largely to the friendly
urgency of the Blair family; and now Postmaster-General Blair, puzzled
at the disagreeable stories about him, went to St. Louis on an errand of
investigation. Fremont promptly placed him under arrest. At the same
time Mrs. Fremont was journeying to Washington, where she had an
extraordinary interview with the President. "She sought an audience with
me at midnight," wrote Lincoln, "and taxed me so violently with many
things that I had to exercise all the awkward tact I have to avoid
quarreling with her.... She more than once intimated that if General
Fremont should decide to try conclusions with me, he could set up for
himself." Naturally the angry lady's threats of treason, instead of
seeming a palliation of her husband's shortcomings, tended to make his
displacement more inevitable. Yet the necessity of being rid of him was
unfortunate, because he was the pet hero of the Abolitionists, who stood
by him without the slightest regard to reason. Lincoln was loath to
offend them, but he felt that he had no choice, and therefore ordered
the removal. He preserved, however, that habitual strange freedom from
personal resentment which made his feelings, like his action, seem to be
strictly official. After the matter was all over he uttered a fair
judgment: "I thought well of Fremont. Even now I think well of his
impulses. I only think he is the prey of wicked and designing men; and I
think he has absolutely no military capacity." For a short while General
Hunter filled Fremont's place, until, in November, General Henry W.
Halleck was assigned to command th