for any important command there can be no doubt. After the
disaster of Chickamauga, Rosecrans was relieved and General Thomas was
put in command and General Grant was ordered to the field. He met
Rosecrans at Nashville where they had an interview. From General Grant
I received the statement that Rosecrans had sound views as to the means
of relieving the army; "And," said General Grant, "my wonder was that
he had not put them in execution."

This one fact expresses enough of the weak side of Rosecrans as a
military leader to warrant the opinion given to Chase by Garfield,
and that opinion having been formed upon a knowledge of facts and of
Rosecrans as a military man and not from prejudice or rivalry, Garfield
should be honored for his course, rather than condemned.

GEORGE BANCROFT

The death of Mr. Bancroft at the age of more than ninety years removes
one of the few men in private life who can be ranked as personages. He
was, perhaps, the only person in private life whose death would have
received a semi-public recognition from any of the rulers of Europe.
Such a recognition was accorded by the Emperor of Germany, and chiefly,
as it is understood, on account of the friendship which existed between
Mr. Bancroft and the grandfather of the present Emperor.

Mr. Bancroft's long and successful career as a writer and diplomatist
would seem to be evidence of the presence of qualities of a high order,
and yet no one who was near him accepted that opinion. His
conversation was not instructive, certainly not in later years, nor was
he an original thinker upon any subject. He was an enthusiast in
politics in early and middle life, and while his mental faculties
remained unimpaired his interest in political movements was great--and
usually it was in sympathy with the Democratic Party. He was an
adhesive man in politics, capable of appearing to be reconciled to the
success of his opponents and ready to accept favors from them in the
way of office and honors and yet without in fact committing himself
to their policy.

He was a laborious student, and he had access to standard and in many
particulars to original authorities. At the commencement of his history
he erred in denying with much confidence the claim of the visits of the
Northmen to this continent in the ninth and tenth centuries.

That early claim seems to be supported by evidence which is nearly, if
not absolutely, conclusive. Of all his chapters that on Was