the
open or secret influences at work, or the reasoning based upon the
facts, this was Grant's first decision, but it is to be observed that
the plan as adopted was afterwards fatally modified by permitting
Butler, notwithstanding his partiality for Smith, as shown by his
recent request for his re-assignment to his department, to take the
field in person, with Smith commanding one of his army corps and
Gillmore the other. In other words, Grant was not altogether a free
agent, though the government had ostensibly given him a free hand. Of
course, Smith knew that in any case he could not be permitted to make
all the plans, even if he held the first subordinate command, and it is
always possible that he had not specially endeared himself to the
leading officers of the eastern armies, but there can hardly be a doubt
that he would have given efficient and loyal support to Grant without
reference to the plan of operations which it might be found necessary
to adopt.

Without pausing here to recapitulate the arguments for and against the
line and general plan of operations actually selected by General Grant,
or to consider further his choice of subordinate commanders, it may he
well to call attention to the fact that the organization and
arrangements made by him for the control and co-operation of the forces
in Virginia, are now generally regarded by military critics as having
been nearly as faulty as they could have been. It will he remembered
that Meade, with a competent staff had immediate command of the Army of
the Potomac, but was followed closely wherever he went by General Grant
and his staff. At the same time Burnside, with the Ninth Corps, having
an older commission than Meade, and having been once in command of the
Army of the Potomac, was for reasons which must be regarded as largely
sentimental, permitted to report directly to and receive his orders
directly from Grant, while Butler with two army corps operating at
first at a considerable distance and later in a semi-detached and less
independent manner, made his reports to and received his instructions
directly from Grant's headquarters.

This arrangement, as might have been foreseen, was fatal to coherent
and prompt co-operative action, and the result was properly described
by Grant himself as comparable only to the work of a "balky team." It
was in the nature of things impossible to make either the armies or the
separate army-corps work harmoniously and effecti