ting fact that the plan in question did not receive the
support of Rawlins, although both he and Grant, fresh from the victory
of Chattanooga, were warm friends and admirers of General Smith as a
strategist. Rawlins, with unerring instinct, took strong grounds
against it, for the reason, as he vigorously expressed it, that he
could not see the sense of going so far, and taking so much time to
find Lee with a divided army, when he could be reached within a half
day's march directly to the front, with the entire army united and
reinforced by all the men the government had at its disposal. Knowing
that this was Grant's argument as well, I have always supposed that his
final decision to advance directly from Culpepper Court House against
Lee's army, and to retain Meade in immediate command of the Army of the
Potomac, while the entire available force of Butler's Department should
advance directly from Fort Monroe under the immediate command of
General Smith, was due partly to Smith's decided opposition to the
overland line of operations, and to his tenacious adherence to the
principal features of the plan which he and Franklin had recommended to
Lincoln. Meade's approval of the direct line of advance, and his
cheerful support of Grant's plans as explained in detail, aided by
Butler's assurances of hearty co-operation, doubtless had much to do
with the retention of those officers in their respective places, and in
the assignment of Smith, much to his disappointment, to a relatively
subordinate position on the line he had so openly preferred. It may
also account in some degree for the failure of those distinguished
generals to work as harmoniously with each other to the common end, as
was necessary to ensure success.

Before following this interesting subject to its conclusion, the part
actually played by General Smith in McClellan's Peninsular Campaign
should be briefly recounted. After the Army of the Potomac had been
transferred to the lower Chesapeake, by water, instead of landing at
Urbana or on the estuary of the Rappahannock, as was at first intended,
out of fear of the Merrimac, which had played such havoc with the
wooden frigates of Goldborough's fleet, in Hampton Roads, it was
disembarked at Fortress Monroe. It necessarily lost some time here
before it could be reunited and begin its march up the Peninsula. It
had hardly got well under way, when much to the disappointment of the
country it found itself stopped for th