Matthew Arnold, Civilization in the United States: First and Last Impressions of America.

---

[51] State of Georgia. In the East, the opposing forces stood between the Federal and Confederate capitals, and substantially in the same relations to each other as when the war began three years before. President Lincoln told Grant, when he first saw him in private, that although he had never professed to know how campaigns should be conducted, and never wanted to interfere in them, yet “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. He did not know but they were all wrong, and did know that some of them were. What he wanted,” he continued, “was a general who would take the responsibility and act; he would support him with all the power of the Government.” He added that he did not even ask to know what Grant's plans were. But such is human nature, that the next moment he brought out a map of Virginia, showed Grant two streams running into the Potomac, and suggested a plan of his own for landing the army between the mouths of these streams, which would protect its flanks while it moved out. “I listened respectfully,” says Grant, with dry humour, “but did not suggest that the ”