r defeat, would mingle some exultation over a
disgraced political opponent. So people in general seem content to give
the Fighting One another chance.

This unusual clemency may be easily accounted for. It would be almost
impossible to pitch on any one with the slightest pretensions to fill
the vacated path. If you except Rosecrans, and perhaps Franklin, there
is hardly a Division leader who has not, at one time or another,
betrayed incapacity enough to disqualify him from holding any important
command. West Point may send forth as good theoretical soldiers as
Sandhurst, or St. Cyr, while the practical experience of American
Generals might equal that of our own officers before the Crimean war;
but the best from West Point have gone southward long ago, and by the
retirement of McClellan the North lost, probably, her one promising
strategist. Cool and provident in the formation of his plans, though
somewhat unready in their execution, and scarcely equal to sudden
emergencies, if he achieved no brilliant success, he was likely to steer
clear of grave disaster. The dearth of tacticians is made very manifest,
by the list of candidates suggested in the event of Hooker's removal
from command.

There are horses, invariably beaten in public, which never appear
without being heavily backed; and there are men, who contrive to retain
a certain number of partisans, zealous enough to ignore all patent
demerits, and to give their favorite credit for any amount of possible
unproved capacity. Yet one would have thought the Republicans might have
hesitated in bringing forward Fremont, who has already been removed for
blunders hardly to be excused by ignorance; and though the name of
Sickles is, unhappily, well known in Europe, it is somewhat startling to
find him, so early in the day, aspirant to the highest military honors.
His advocate admits that the latter hero's professional opportunities
have been scanty, but, says he, placidly, "Neither was Caesar bred a
soldier." If the sentence was written in sobriety, no praise can be too
high for the audacity of that superb comparison. Another patriot was
exceedingly anxious that General Halleck should be incontinently removed
from the War Office, to make room for--Butler. We accept these things
calmly now; for repeated proof has taught us, that world-wide infamy
bars no man's road to profit and honor, when Black Republicans weigh the
merits of the claimant. The Abolitionist organs of that sa