troops home to vote, while he did encourage and authorize the making the same request of Sheridan and Meade, and not in vain.

But assuming that his letter was right to be officially written; as a citizen, he could have expressed his opinions, so as to have added his moral might to the cause of the Union.

Nor can it be averred that he was unconscious of the value of a Union victory at the polls, for after the election. was over, to which he did not contribute one mote of support, he advised the Government that: "Enough now seems to be known to say who is to hold the reins of government for the next four years." And he added, "Congratulate the President for me on the double victory. The election having passed off quietly, no bloodshed or riot throughout the land, is a victory worth more to the country than a battle won. Rebeldom and Europe will so construe it."

Then why, it may be asked, did not the citizen Grant throw his influence, if he could not his sword, into the scale? To win a battle required human slaughter: here was a bloodless battle whose successful issue was "more than a battle won"-and by parity of reasoning, whose loss would have been more than a battle lost. In fact, one might go further and say to the spirits of those who perished in the battles, from Bull Run to Atlanta, and who throng that "Cimmerian land, of which Homer spoke, the dim and sunless region of the dead," that "the deep damnation of their taking off" had been objectless-that their wives were widowed, their children orphaned and their parents made childless, all in vain. No wonder then that Lincoln said, in bitterness of spirit, of the man whom he had saved from ignominy and obloquy: "I have no reason to suppose that General Grant desires my election any more than he does that of McClellan."

Whether the President had any other grounds for his belief than this letter with the chilling atmosphere of the North Pole, which we have set forth, history does not record,

but Lincoln was the most astute man of his time, and evidently had abundant reason for not asking aid from Grant, in the salvation of the nation at the polls, which he readily asked of Sheridan and Meade.

It sometimes occurs that a soldier or a sailor is, perforce, compelled to usurp political functions, as was the case with. Fremont and Kearney in California, or Wilkes at the capture of Slidell and Mason; but the true rule, when the necessity does not exist, is for the military commander to confine himself closely to his maneuvres, marches, lunettes, bastions and investments, and rigidly obey orders from the seat of power,

"Theirs not to make reply

Theirs not to reason why

Theirs but to do and die."

But the war of the rebellion was prolific of soldier politicians, who acted as if they were dictators, and probably thought they would, in effect, become so, if they were not so then. Fremont deemed himself to have been so in Missouri; he manumitted slaves and issued free papers; and when ordered to stop, required Lincoln himself to promulgate an order to that effect; and he committed other excesses to such a dangerous extent that the President was compelled to shelve him he did not understand his responsibility; to a friend of mine, he said confidently and ex cathedra: "The people are with me, sir; the people mean to support me;" and Mrs. Fremont went on to Washington to remonstrate with the President about interfering with her husband, and said repeatedly to him during their interview, in a sort of defiant inquiry: "You can't remove the general?" Phelps also undertook to free the negroes, so likewise Hunter and Schenck: Lincoln had to meet all these impertinences, which he did good-naturedly, when he had better have shown a bristling front and put a stop to it in its incipiency.

McClellan, of course, tried his hand as a politician, and wrote the President, and handed it to him in person, a political letter defining his view of the political duties of the ad

ministration about slavery; the readers of O'Meara's "St. Helena" may recollect what Napoleon did with an impudent document sent him by Pichegru (I think); probably the President did the same with this impudent document: doubtless the cis-Atlantic, one-horse Napoleon thought he was performing an act of gracious condescension in advising Lincoln as to his political duties. If the President had not been overburdened with care, it would have been a rich treat to hear him say: "That is like the feller down at Skunk Holler," etc. But the President simply read it and treated it and its author with silent contempt.

The very genius of our institutions, however, induced our officers to mix politics with their swords. In Europe and absolute governments, elsewhere, a soldier is a mere automaton-a human machine: but in our country every man is a sovereign himself, and the tendency is to arrogate to himself responsibility in no wise his.

The reasons for these assumptions of power, lies not in ignorance, so much as in wilfulness; it was galling to one of our citizens who had been in Congress-or the legislature, or in the "lead" in social life, to stupidly obey orders which may not accord with his views to stolidly beat time while others sing; hence the tendency to play politician.

As "Appomatox" hove in sight and Lee suggested to Grant a "military convention," Lincoln reflected on the trouble political generals like Fremont and McClellan had occasioned him by "poaching upon his manor"- and trying to run the politics as well as the war; so, in reply to Grant's request for instructions, he sent him the following explicit message, viz.: "The President directs me to say to you that he wishes you to have no conference with General Lee, unless it be for the capitulation of General Lee's army, or in some minor or purely military matter. He instructs me to say that you are not to decide, discuss or confer upon any political questions. Such questions the President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to no military con

ferences or conventions. Meanwhile, you are to press to the utmost your military advantages."

There was no reason especially, as appears to the public, to suppose that Grant needed this check-rein; he seems, throughout his career, to have been loyal, unambitious and subordinate: Hooker and others had proposed a dictatorship; and the young Napoleon had much advice from many quarters, to that end.

But Grant had no such tendencies, to all appearance; and the probabilities are that the President urged this caution in order to prevent any complications; and on the theory that Grant, elated with his great success, might naturally and unconsciously trench on the domain of political power, in his agreement with the vanquished Rebels.

As it was, he, nevertheless, did stray beyond the bounds of military necessity, and embarrassed the administration, as I shall show.

The terms of capitulation written by Grant on the little broken marble-top center table in McLean's parlor (by the way, did any body ever know of a marble-top table in the parlor of a Southern residence that wasn't broken across ?) were thus:

"In accordance with the substance of my letter to you of the 8th inst., I propose to receive the surrender of the army of Northern Virginia on the following terms, to-wit: Rolls of all the officers and men to be made in duplicate, one copy to be given to an officer to be designated by me, the other to be retained by such officer or officers as you may designate.

"The officers to give their individual paroles not to take up arms against the government of the United States until properly exchanged; and each company or regimental commander to sign a like parole for the men of their commands. The arms, artillery, and public property to be parked and stacked, and turned over to the officers appointed by me to receive them. This will not embrace the side arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage.

"This done, each officer and man will be allowed to re