lding the three great
States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, with the aid of disloyal
Democrats, whereupon it was supposed Missouri and Kentucky would
quickly join them and make an end of the war.

Becoming convinced, when this project fell through, that nothing could
be expected from Northern Democrats he placed his reliance on Canadian
sympathizers, and turned his attention to liberating the Confederate
prisoners confined on Johnson's Island in Sandusky Bay and at Camp
Douglas near Chicago. But both these elaborate schemes, which embraced
such magnificent details as capturing the war steamer _Michigan_ on Lake
Erie, came to naught. Nor did the plans to burn St. Louis and New York,
and to destroy steamboats on the Mississippi River, to which he also
gave his sanction, succeed much better. A very few men were tried and
punished for these and similar crimes, despite the voluble protest of
the Confederate government but the injuries he and his agents were able
to inflict, like the acts of the Knights of the Golden Circle on the
American side of the border, amounted merely to a petty annoyance, and
never reached the dignity of real menace to the government.

XXVI

Burnside--Fredericksburg--A Tangle of Cross-Purposes--Hooker Succeeds
Burnside--Lincoln to Hooker--Chancellorsville--Lee's Second
Invasion--Lincoln's Criticisms of Hooker's Plans--Hooker
Relieved--Meade--Gettysburg--Lee's Retreat--Lincoln's Letter to
Meade--Lincoln's Gettysburg Address--Autumn Strategy--The Armies go into
Winter Quarters

It was not without well-meditated reasons that Mr. Lincoln had so long
kept McClellan in command of the Army of the Potomac. He perfectly
understood that general's defects, his want of initiative, his
hesitations, his delays, his never-ending complaints. But he had long
foreseen the difficulty which would and did immediately arise when, on
November 5, 1862, he removed him from command. Whom should he appoint as
McClellan's successor? What officer would be willing and competent to
play a better part? That important question had also long been
considered; several promising generals had been consulted, who, as
gracefully as they could, shrank from the responsibility even before it
was formally offered them.

The President finally appointed General Ambrose E. Burnside to the
command. He was a West Point graduate, thirty-eight years old, of
handsome presence, brave and generous to a fault, and McClellan's
intimate frie