was not easy to secure by the two lines of road (one of
which was continually being cut by our troops) sufficient supplies for
Lee's army. It was difficult to bring from the granaries farther south,
in addition to the supplies required for the army, food for the
inhabitants of the town. It was inevitable under the circumstances that
the prisoners should be neglected and that in addition to the deaths
from cold (the blankets, the overcoats, and the shoes had been taken
from the prisoners because they were needed by the rebel troops) there
should be further deaths from starvation.

It was not unnatural that under such conditions the prisoners should
have ground not only for bitter indignation with the prison authorities,
but for discontent with their own administration. One may in fact be
surprised that starving and dying men should have retained any assured
spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we
found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The
soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison
votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individual
ballot in any case would not have been legal as I was at the time but
twenty years of age. I can but feel, however, that this vote of the
prisoners was typical and important, and I have no doubt it was so
recognised when later the report of the voting reached Washington.

In December, 1864, occurred one of the too-frequent cabals on the part
of certain members of the Cabinet. Pressure was brought to bear upon
Lincoln to get rid of Seward. Lincoln's reply made clear that he
proposed to remain President. He says to the member reporting for
himself and his associates the protest against Seward: "I propose to be
the sole judge as to the dismissal or appointment of the members of my
Cabinet." Lincoln could more than once have secured peace within the
Cabinet and a smoother working of the administrative machinery if he had
been willing to replace the typical and idiosyncratic men whom he had
associated with himself in the government by more commonplace citizens,
who would have been competent to carry on the routine responsibilities
of their posts. The difficulty of securing any consensus of opinion or
any working action between men differing from each other as widely as
did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and
in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an