rkable aptitude and efficiency in the discharge of his
peculiar duties,--exhibiting in his administration the very qualities
most likely to prove offensive to the President. He had perhaps the
most difficult command of any of the generals on duty in the South,
as the State of South Carolina had from the beginning of the Rebellion
presented certain phases of disobedience to Federal authority peculiar
to her population and naturally arising from her antecedent history.
General Sickles had some trouble with Attorney-General Stanbery, and
asked for a court of inquiry, that he might vindicate himself from the
accusations of that official.

General Schofield and General Ord alone of the original commanders in
the Southern military districts were left to carry through the work of
Reconstruction. They both discharged their duties with intelligence
and fidelity. Nor was the work of Reconstruction essentially hindered
by the changed in other departments. It is the trained habit of the
officers of the United-States Army to carry out their orders with
implicit faith, and there is seldom a conflict as to the line of duty
to be followed. If there was any exception, it was in regard to
the course pursued by General Hancock. His conduct became a subject
of controversy, and the popular division respecting its merits was on
the political line. The National Administration and the Democratic
party, both North and South, applauded every thing which General
Hancock said and did in Louisiana. The Republican party throughout
the country, and the General commanding the army, who was about to be
nominated for the Presidency, united in strong disapproval of his
course. But General Hancock's construction of the laws under which he
was acting was the same as that held by the Attorney-General of the
United States, and he thus felt abundantly justified and fortified in
his position. He disobeyed no specific order of the General
commanding the army, and, even if there had been a difference between
them, General Hancock was sure of the sympathy and support of their
common superior--the President of the United States.

It was however the subsequent opinion of General Grant that much of the
disorder and bloodshed in the State of Louisiana during the national
election of 1868 had resulted from the military government of General
Hancock. It was not his belief that General Hancock had the slightest
desire or design to produce such results, but t