which, within reasonable bounds, does good rather than harm; but
I think that during General Burnside's command of the army you
have taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him as much as
you could, in which you did a great wrong to the country and to a
most meritorious and honorable brother officer. I have heard, in
such way as to believe it, of your recently saying that both the
army and the Government needed a Dictator. Of course it was not
for this, but in spite of it, that I have given you the command.
Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictatorships.
What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the
dictatorship. The Government will support you to the utmost of
its ability, which is neither more nor less than it has done and
will do for all commanders. I much fear that the spirit which you
have aided to infuse into the army, of criticizing their commander
and withholding confidence from him, will now turn upon you. I
shall assist you as far as I can to put it down. Neither you nor
Napoleon, if he were alive again, could get any good out of an army
while such a spirit prevails in it. And now, beware of rashness,
but with energy and sleepless vigilance go forward, and give us
victories.

Then came Chancellorsville, doubts at Washington, interference by
Stanton, ill-judged orders from Halleck, and some not very judicious
rejoinders from Hooker himself, who became rather peevish, to Lincoln's
alarm. So when, on the twenty-seventh of June, Hooker tendered his
resignation, it was promptly accepted. With Lee in Pennsylvania
there was no time for discussion: only for finding some one to
trust.

Lee, as usual, had divined the political forces working on the
Union armies from Washington and had maneuvered with a combination
of skill and daring that exactly met the situation. Throwing his
left forward (under Ewell) in the Shenandoah Valley he had driven
Milroy out of Winchester on the fourteenth of June and next day
secured a foothold across the Potomac. Then the rest of his army
followed. It was so much stretched out (to facilitate its food
supply) that Lincoln again wished to strike it at any vulnerable
spot. But the Cabinet in general (and Stanton in particular) were
still determined that the Union army should be their passive shield,
not their active sword. On the twenty-fourth Ewell was already
beginning to semicircle Gettysburg from the Cumberland Valley. On
the twenty-eighth, th