ats in
Illinois; both were zealous in the war and had joined the Army upon its
outbreak. Logan served as a general under Grant with confessed ability.
It must be repeated that, North and South, former civilians had to be
placed in command for lack of enough soldiers of known capacity to go
round, and that many of them, like Logan and like the Southern general,
Polk, who was a bishop in the American Episcopal Church, did very good
service. McClernand had early obtained high rank and had shown no sign
as yet of having less aptitude for his new career than other men of
similar antecedents. Grant, however, distrusted him, and proved to be
right. In October, 1862, McClernand came to Lincoln with an offer of his
personal services in raising troops from Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa,
with a special view to clearing the Mississippi. He of course expected
to be himself employed in this operation. Recruiting was at a low ebb,
and it would have been folly to slight this offer. McClernand did in
fact raise volunteers to the number of a whole army corps. He was placed
under Grant in command of the expedition down the Mississippi which had
already started under Sherman. Sherman's great promise had not yet been
proved to any one but Grant; he appears at this time to have come under
the disapproval of the Joint Committee of Congress on the War, and the
newspaper Press had not long before announced, with affected regret, the
news that he had become insane. McClernand, arriving just after
Sherman's defeat near Vicksburg, fell in at once with a suggestion of his
to attack the Post of Arkansas, a Confederate stronghold in the State of
Arkansas and upon the river of that name, from the shelter of which
Confederate gunboats had some chance of raiding the Mississippi above
Vicksburg. The expedition succeeded in this early in January, 1863, and
was then recalled to join Grant. This was a mortification to McClernand,
who had hoped for a command independent of Grant. In his subsequent
conduct he seems to have shown incapacity; he was certainly insubordinate
to Grant, and he busied himself in intrigues against him, with such
result as will soon be seen. As soon as Grant told the Administration
that he was dissatisfied with McClernand, he was assured that he was at
liberty to remove him from command. This he eventually did after some
months of trial.

In the first three months of 1863, while the army of the Potomac,
shattered at Frede