inistration would be able to command a majority in the House. The
retirement of McClellan from the command had also provoked much
opposition, and in the lack of full knowledge of the reasons for
displacing him, political ones were imagined and charged. Public
policy forbade the President to make known all his grounds of
dissatisfaction with the general, and many of his own party openly
questioned his wisdom and his capacity to govern. Men whose
patriotism cannot be questioned shared in this distrust, and in
their private writings took the most gloomy view of the situation
and of the future of the country. This was intensified when Burnside
was so bloodily repulsed at Fredericksburg at the close of the first
week of the session. [Footnote: Mr. W. P. Cutler, Representative
from Ohio, a modest but very intelligent and patriotic man, wrote in
his diary under December 16th: "This is a day of darkness and peril
to the country... Lincoln himself seems to have no nerve or decision
in dealing with great issues. We are at sea, and no pilot or
captain. God alone can take care of us, and all his ways _seem_ to
be against us and to favor the rebels and their allies the
Democrats. Truly it is a day of darkness and gloom." "Life and
Times" of Ephraim Cutler, with biographical sketches of Jervis
Cutler and W. P. Cutler, p.296.]

As is usual in revolutionary times, more radical measures were
supposed by many to be the cure for disasters, and in caucuses held
by congressmen the supposed conservatism of Mr. Lincoln and part of
his cabinet was openly denounced, and the earnestness of the army
leaders was questioned. [Footnote: Mr. Cutler reports a caucus of
the House held January 27th, in which "Mr. ---- stated that the great
difficulty was in holding the President to anything. He prided
himself on having a divided cabinet, so that he could play one
against the other... The earnest men are brought to a deadlock by
the President. The President is tripped up by his generals, who for
the most part seem to have no heart in their work." _Id_., p.301.
Mr. Cutler himself expresses similar sentiments and reiterates: "It
really seems as if the ship of state was going to pieces in the
storm." "How striking the want of a leader. The nation is without a
head." "The true friends of the government are groping around
without a leader," etc. _Id_., pp. 297, 301,302] Much of this was a
misunderstanding of the President and of events which time has
correc