compelled to laugh, indignantly, over the effrontery of men who brought to his own office actual specimens of so-called "rifles," to be offered him by the thousand at high prices, the specimen itself, in more cases than one, being an unfirable tool which would have disgraced a curiosity-shop.

Other matters, even more curious, were constantly urged upon him: wonderful new forms of cannon; coffee-mill guns; breastplates and cuirasses, of steel or of complex "padding," which would have been fine loads for men on a forced march in summer; new pistols, good and bad, and bayonets of many patterns, and devilish contrivances which even the inventor found difficulty in explaining the possible use of.

Mr. Lincoln patiently examined whatever was brought to him. He took an especial interest in improved rifles. He at once accepted the idea, which the old army men rejected, that the breech-loading rifle was the weapon sure of universal adoption in the near future; and whenever one was shown him that seemed to promise well, he did his best to give it a personal trial. On the wide space of open ground between the White House and the Potomac, in the latter months of 1861, there stood a huge pile of old lumber, nobody knew whence or why. It was just the thing upon which to set up a target; and there, in the very early morning, the President of the United States might have been seen, accompanied by one of his private secretaries, diligently firing away with the last new invention, and forming his own opinions of its prospective usefulness. He came as near as was possible to being arrested there, one morning, for using fire-arms within the city limits contrary to existing military regulations. He was in the act of stooping on one knee for a very careful aim, when a "corporal of the guard" with a squad of men came running down upon him to make the seizure called for by their orders. A chorus of angry shouts dropped suddenly into silence, however, and the whole squad turned and ran away faster than they came when the stooping culprit stood erect and they had a good

look into the smiling face of the President. His only remark

was:

"Well, they might have staid and seen the shooting."

This, truly, was not very good, considered as marksmanship, for Mr. Lincoln had never acquired accuracy in that accomplishment, even among the Indiana backwoods.

After the gathering of armies, the appointment of a small army of generals, and the creation of a war organism, one more question lay heavy on the heart and brain of Mr. Lincoln. It was one he was to carry for a long time, for it related to the discovery of a great commander. Immediately after the battle of Bull Run it was necessary to relieve General McDowell-under whose nominal leadership and in spite of whose ability and good conduct that well-fought battle had been thrown away-of the command of the forces defending Washington. He was succeeded, under the advice of Lieutenant-General Winfield Scott, by Major-General George B. McClellan, an accomplished officer, favorably known as a military scholar and writer, and also, to the country generally, by reason of the successes achieved by the troops under his command in West Virginia, which were then attributed to his generalship. That they occurred without his especial complicity and almost without his knowledge was not accurately ascertained until a later day.

General McClellan, in the beginning, was a great and welcome relief to Mr. Lincoln, and his services were appreciated to the uttermost. He was young, ambitious, overflowing with bodily vigor and high spirits, and he was thoroughly equipped with the technical knowledge and skill required for the present emergency. It is entirely safe to say that a better selection could not have been made at the time, since the chosen general possessed a peculiar genius for organization. That his genius as a military commander went but little beyond the range of faculties so to be now employed was not discovered until a different set of circumstances called upon him for the

exercise of powers of whose very absence he was sincerely ig

norant.

On the resignation and retirement of General Scott, in the following November, General McClellan, as the then senior major-general of the army, was advanced to the chief command. It was his serious misfortune that with his advancement he accepted and retained a vague idea that the President, a mere civil and elective functionary, had somehow ceased to be his military superior and actual commander-in-chief.

Through all the trials and changes which followed, it is well to say here, Mr. Lincoln never materially modified his original estimate of General McClellan and much regretted his inability to add to it. Just before the final act of removing him from command, he at last remarked to a member of his personal staff:

"For organizing an army, for preparing an army for the field, for fighting a defensive campaign, I will back General McClellan against any general of modern times. I don't know but of ancient times, either. But I begin to believe that he will never get ready to go forward!"

It was said with somewhat of sadness but with more than ordinary emphasis, for it implied that the forward movement was of more importance, in the eyes of Mr. Lincoln, than were the personal fortunes of any one commander. That was a point overlooked by many people, both then and afterwards.

McClellan assumed command on July 27, 1861. The work of equipping the army and navy went steadily forward. The Southern statesmen and generals toiled at their similar task on the other side of the now rigidly tightening army lines. Mr. Lincoln saw more and more clearly the magnitude of the struggle before him, while hourly the people began to clamor more loudly for the battles and victories which were not ready and did not come.

CHAPTER XXXV.

NEW NATIONAL LIFE.

A Shattered Idol--A New State-Contraband of War-Transitions and Processes-Lincoln a Dictator-The Law of Revolution.

66

Ir is not altogether easy at this day to understand how deeply ingrained in the minds of the American people was once the idea of the legality of human slavery. Only a small percentage of even the men who cast their votes for Abraham Lincoln, in 1860, were thorough-going enemies of slavery for its own sake, or were at all entitled or willing to be classed as Abolitionists." If, however, those who hated the institution were few at the beginning, every day of the continuance of the war added to their numbers. Every drop of good blood wasted by the slaveholders' rebellion intensified the horror with which human bondage fast grew to be regarded. Nevertheless, the great majority of the people yet required a prolonged and severe course of instruction and of mental and moral awakening to prepare them for the final breaking of the old-time idol.

Mr. Lincoln knew very well that slavery must perish. He had so declared in public and in private. He was fully convinced, from the first, that the downfall of the Rebellion must carry with it the destruction of the one cause and object of the Rebellion, but his own hands were for the moment tied. He was fettered by the opinions and prejudices of the very people upon whom he was calling and depending for men and money. He was fettered by the prevailing sentiment of the army itself and by that of many of its best commanders. He was fettered by the unforfeited legal rights of slaveholders in

the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, and that part of Virginia known as West Virginia, which had loyally repudiated the "ordinance of secession" on the 23d of May.

In this latter area, indeed, an important political action had followed. The Union men in about forty counties, between the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio River, strengthened by the presence of Northern troops and by their first successes in arms, held a convention of delegates at Wheeling, as early as June 11, 1861. They provided speedily for a new State government, and the Legislature gathered under the direction of the convention met at Wheeling, on the first day of July, to declare its adhesion to the Union and to elect two Senators of the United States. These latter were sworn in as members of the Senate on the 13th of July, but it was not until two. years later that the new State of West Virginia was admitted into the Union as a separate commonwealth.

Mr. Lincoln was dealing with a subject of which he had made a life-long study. He was hourly studying it now, and clearly perceived the delicate and dangerous nature of the situation. The deeply rooted prejudices of millions were not to be trifled with. Time must be given for changes to take place, and these would be made at great cost of blood and treasure and untold suffering; but the price so to be paid for them was unavoidable.

Nevertheless, at the very threshold of the war, Mr. Lincoln was compelled to meet and deal with the African-American slave, in actual, personal presence. Eager, hopeful, jubilant, the colored men and women, by day and by night, came marching into every camp on the long border. They brought their children with them when they could, and their continual arrival seemed to shout in the ears of the troubled ruler, whom they already regarded as a divinely appointed deliverer:

"Here we are! What are you going to do with us?"

The whole country heard it, more or less distinctly, and