, if successful, this would produce
a greater effect than any corresponding victory could possibly
produce elsewhere.

On the ninth of June a cavalry combat round Brandy Station, in
the heart of Virginia, made Hooker's staff feel certain that Lee
was again going up the Valley and on to Maryland. At one time,
for want of supplies, Lee had to spread out his front along a line
running eighty miles northwest from Fredericksburg to Strasburg.
Hooker, on the keen alert, implored the Government to let him attack
the three Confederate corps in detail. Success against one at least
was certain. Lincoln understood this perfectly. But the nerves of his
colleagues were again on edge; and no argument could persuade them
to adopt the best of all possible schemes of defense by destroying
the enemy's means of destroying them. They insisted on the usual
shield theory of passive defense, and ordered Hooker to keep between
Lee and Washington whatever might happen. This absurd maneuver was
of course attended with all the usual evil results at the time.
Equally of course, it afterwards drew down the wrath of the wiseacre
public on their own representatives. But wiseacre publics never stop
to think that many a government is forced to do foolish and even
suicidal things in war simply because it represents the ignorance
and folly, as well as the wisdom, of all who have the vote.

Yet both the loyal public and its Government had some good reasons
to doubt Hooker's ability, even apart from his recent defeat; and
Lincoln, wisest of all--except in applying strategy to problems
he could not fully understand--felt almost certain that Hooker's
character contained at least the seeds of failure in supreme command.
"He talks to me like a father," said Hooker, on reading the letter
Lincoln wrote when appointing him Burnside's successor. This remarkable
letter, dated January 26, 1863, though printed many times, is worth
reading again:

I have placed you at the head of the Army of the Potomac. Of course
I have done this upon what appears to me to be sufficient reasons,
and yet I think it best for you to know that there are some things
in regard to which I am not quite satisfied with you. I believe
you to be a brave and skillful soldier, which, of course, I like.
I also believe you do not mix politics with your profession, in
which you are right. You have confidence in yourself, which is
a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You are ambitious,