list. Mr. Lincoln's humorous way of explaining his actions may
give an impression of a lower standard than he actually
acknowledged; but it cannot be denied that he allowed himself to be
pressed into making military promotions, at times, upon purely
political or personal reasons. [Footnote: Colonel Fry, who was
assistant adjutant-general at Washington and in personal intercourse
with the President, gives the following as a memorandum made by Mr.
Lincoln himself in reference to an application to have a
regular-army officer made a brigadier-general of volunteers. "On
this day Mrs. ----- called upon me: she is the wife of Major -----
of the regular army. She is a saucy little woman, and I think she
will torment me till I have to do it." Colonel Fry adds, "It was not
long till that little woman's husband was appointed a
brigadier-general." Miscellany, pp. 280, 281.]

It did not seem to occur to the authorities that the judgment of
superior officers in the field should be called for and carefully
considered when it was a question of promoting one of their
subordinates. An instance which occurred in General Buell's army
carried this beyond the verge of the grotesque. Colonel Turchin, of
an Illinois regiment, was a Russian, an educated officer who had
served in the Russian staff corps. An excellent soldier in many
respects, his ideas of discipline were, unfortunately, lax, and in
the summer of 1862 he was courtmartialled for allowing his men to
pillage a town in Tennessee. The court was an intelligent one, of
which General Garfield was president. The story current in the army
at the time, and which I believe to be true, is that after the court
had heard part of the testimony it became apparent that they must
convict, and Mrs. Turchin, who usually accompanied her husband in
the field, started to the rear to procure political "influences" to
save him. With various recommendations she went to Washington, and
was so successful that although the sentence of the court dismissing
him from the service was promulgated on the 6th of August, he had
been appointed a brigadier-general of volunteers on the 5th, and he
was not one of those who were dropped from the list on March 3,
1863. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xvi. pt. ii. p. 277.] The
trial was one of considerable notoriety, yet it is probable that it
was overlooked by the President and Secretary of War at the time the
appointment was made; but it cannot need to be said that wha