ade's request to be relieved. When one thinks
of the ill-fortunes of the Army of the Potomac under previous
commanders, and of the unlikelihood of finding a successor to Meade as
capable as he had shown himself to be, one shudders at the chances of
what might have happened had another change of leaders been forced upon
that long-suffering and now victorious army. General Meade did not press
his resignation after Halleck's conciliatory telegrams, and remained in
immediate command of the Army of the Potomac until the close of the
war--Grant's accession to the chief command of all the armies having
marked the end of the well-meant but often ill-advised and troublesome
interference with military affairs from Washington.

Mr. Isaac R. Pennypacker, in his Life of General Meade, speaks of
Halleck and other prominent officials in Washington in these terms:
"Possessing much of the skill of the lawyer and disputant, Halleck was
without military ability. The Secretary of War, like many other men who
exercise vast power, was not great enough to refrain from the use of his
authority in matters where his knowledge and experience did not qualify
him to form the soundest views. Acting with these military authorities
were men like Wade and Chandler, whose patriotism was of the exuberant
kind, whose judgment in military affairs was without value, but whose
personal energy impelled them to have a controlling hand, if possible,
in the conduct of the war."

Lincoln's dissatisfaction with General Meade after the battle of
Gettysburg was due, as we now see, to his elation over the splendid
victory for the Union, his intense desire for further and overwhelming
successes, and his failure (a quite natural one) to realize that what
might seem desirable and feasible viewed from Washington might look very
different to the practical and experienced men actually on the ground
and familiar as he could not be with all the factors in the
situation.[J] "He thought," wrote General Halleck in an explanatory
letter sent to Meade two weeks after his despatch of censure, "that
Lee's defeat was so certain that he felt no little impatience at his
unexpected escape." Among military authorities, such a retreat as that
of Lee after Gettysburg is hardly regarded as an "escape." If it were,
then great must be the fault of Lee as a general in allowing the
defeated armies of Burnside and Hooker to "escape" after the battles of
Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, whe