mber, the policy of deference to slavery
still continued. The message of the President was singularly
dispassionate, deprecating "radical and extreme measures," and
recommending some plan of colonization for the slaves made free by
the Confiscation Act. Secretary Cameron, however, surprised the
country by the avowal of a decidedly anti-slavery war policy in
his report; but in a discussion in the House early in December, on
General Halleck's "Order No. Three," I took occasion to expose his
insincerity by referring to his action a little while before in
restoring to her master a slave girl who had fled to the camp of
Colonel Brown, of the Twentieth Indiana regiment, who had refused
to give her up. On the nineteenth of December, a joint select
Committee on the Conduct of the War was appointed, composed of
three members of the Senate and four members of the House. The
Senators were B. F. Wade, of Ohio; Z. Chandler, of Michigan, and
Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee; and the House members were John
Covode, of Pennsylvania; M. F. Odell, of New York; D. W. Gooch, of
Massachusetts, and myself. The committee had its birth in the
popular demand for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and less
tenderness toward slavery; and I was gratified with my position on
it because it afforded a very desirable opportunity to learn
something of the movements of our armies and the secrets of our
policy.

On the sixth of January, by special request of the President, the
committee met him and his Cabinet at the Executive Mansion, to
confer about the military situation. The most striking fact revealed
by the discussion which took place was that neither the President
nor his advisers seemed to have any definite information respecting
the management of the war, or the failure of our forces to make
any forward movement. Not a man of them pretended to know anything
of General McClellan's plans. We were greatly surprised to learn
that Mr. Lincoln himself did not think he had any _right_ to know,
but that, as he was not a military man, it was his duty to defer
to General McClellan. Our grand armies were ready and eager to
march, and the whole country was anxiously waiting some decisive
movement; but during the delightful months of October, November
and December, they had been kept idle for some reason which no man
could explain, but which the President thought could be perfectly
accounted for by the General-in-Chief. Secretary Cameron said he