later. As he had foreseen, dark days followed. There were mutinies in the army; there was ridicule; there was a long interval of waiting for results. Nothing but the greatest care in enforcing the proclamation could make it a greater good than evil, and Mr. Lincoln now turned all his energies to this new task. "We are like whalers who have been long on a chase," he said one day; "we have at last got the harpoon into the monster, but we must now look how we steer, or with one 'flop' of his tail he will send us all into eternity."

CHAPTER XXVI

LINCOLN'S SEARCH FOR A GENERAL

THE failure of McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign not only forced the Emancipation Proclamation from Lincoln, it set him to working on a fresh set of military problems. The most important of these was a search for a competent general-in-chief for the armies of the United States. As has already been noted General McClellan had been appointed general-in-chief in July, 1861, after the first battle of Bull Run. A few months' experience had demonstrated to the Administration that able as McClellan was in forming an army and inspiring his soldiers, he lacked the ability to direct a great concerted movement extending over so long a line as that from the Mississippi to the Atlantic. In March when he took the field at the head of the Army of the Potomac the President relieved him from the command of all military departments except that of the Department of the Potomac. From March to July, 1862, Lincoln had no general-in-chief. He felt so keenly his need of an experienced military counsellor that towards the end of June he made a hurried and secret visit to General Scott, who since he had been superseded by McClellan had been in retirement.

One result of his visit to McClellan at Harrison's Landing in July was to fix Lincoln's determination

to have in Washington a general-in-chief of all the armies who could supplement his own meagre knowledge of military matters, and who could aid him in forming judgments. He knew that in the campaign against Richmond he had, at more than one critical moment, made decisions which were contrary to McClellan's plans. He knew that McClellan claimed that these decisions had caused his failure. He had acted to the best of his judgment in every case, but he undoubtedly felt the danger in a civilian's taking such a responsibility. He wanted a man at his side whom he believed was wiser than he in these matters. So far the war had brought out but one man who seemed to him at all fit for this work, MajorGeneral H. W. Halleck, the commander of the Department of the Mississippi. On his return to Washington from his visit to McClellan, almost the first act of the President was to summon Halleck to Washington as general-in-chief. Halleck was a West Point man highly regarded by General Scott, who had been appointed to take charge of the Department of the West after Frémont's failure there. He had shown such vigor in his field in the winter of 1861-62, that in March, when McClellan was relieved of the position of general-in-chief, a new department including all the Mississippi region west of Knoxville, Tennessee, was given to Halleck. Since that time he had succeeded in opening the Mississippi with the aid of the gunboats as far south as Memphis.

Halleck was appointed on July 11, and soon after his arrival in Washington he went to Harrison's

LINCOLN AT MCCLELLAN'S HEADQUARTERS, ANTIETAM, OCTOBER 3, 1862.

From a photograph loaned by Mr. C. M. Derickson, Mercer, Pa. After defeating Lee at Antietam on September 17, McClellan had failed to follow up his advantage, alleging that his army lacked "everything" and needed rest. Lincoln then went to Antietam to study the situation for himself; and it was during this visit that the picture was taken. At Lincoln's left stands McClellan.