ignorant and meddlesome Congress, and a
wolfish horde of place-hunters. A sudden dash of the Confederates on the
capital might change the attitude of foreign powers. These political
considerations weighed heavily at the seat of government, but were of
small moment to the military commander. In a conflict between civil
policy and military strategy, the latter must yield. The jealousy
manifested by the Venetian and Dutch republics toward their commanders
has often been criticised; but it should be remembered that they kept
the military in strict subjection to the civil power; and when they were
overthrown, it was by foreign invasion, not by military usurpation.
Their annals afford no example of the declaration by their generals that
the special purpose of republican armies is to preserve civil order and
enforce civil law.

After the battle of Chickamauga, in 1863, General Grant was promoted to
the command of the armies of the United States, and called to
Washington. In a conference between him, President Lincoln, and
Secretary Stanton, the approaching campaign in Virginia was discussed.
Grant said that the advance on Richmond should be made by the James
river. It was replied that the Government required the interposition of
an army between Lee and Washington, and could not consent at that late
day to the adoption of a plan which would be taken by the public as a
confession of previous error. Grant observed that he was indifferent as
to routes; but if the Government preferred its own, so often tried, to
the one he suggested, it must be prepared for the additional loss of a
hundred thousand men. The men were promised, Grant accepted the
governmental plan of campaign, and was supported to the end. The above
came to me well authenticated, and I have no doubt of its
correctness.[2]

[Footnote 2: Some of the early pages of this work were published in the
number of the "North American Review" for January, 1878, including the
above account of a conference at Washington between President Lincoln,
Secretary Stanton, and General Grant. In the "New York Herald" of May
27, 1878, appears an interview with General Grant, in which the latter
says, "The whole story is a fabrication, and whoever vouched for it to
General Taylor vouched for a fiction." General Halleck, who was at the
time in question Chief of Staff at the war office, related the story of
this conference to me in New Orleans, where he was on a visit from
Louisville, Ky., t