Although hailing from Illinois myself, the State of the President, I
never met Mr. Lincoln until called to the capital to receive my
commission as lieutenant-general. I knew him, however, very well and
favorably from the accounts given by officers under me at the West who
had known him all their lives. I had also read the remarkable series of
debates between Lincoln and Douglas a few years before, when they were
rival candidates for the United States Senate. I was then a resident of
Missouri, and by no means a "Lincoln man" in that contest; but I
recognized then his great ability.
In my first interview with Mr. Lincoln alone he stated to me that he had
never professed to be a military man or to know how campaigns should be
conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them: but that
procrastination on the part of commanders, and the pressure from the
people at the North and Congress, WHICH WAS ALWAYS WITH HIM, forced him
into issuing his series of "Military Orders"--one, two, three, etc. He
did not know but they were all wrong, and did know that some of them
were.
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