John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[187] department or field commander, and wrote a few days later asking the Secretary of War to give that general a chance in order that the great mass of the people who had supported him might not become dissatisfied. This brought the forcible declaration from the secretary: “If General Fremont has any fight in him he shall (so far as I am concerned) have a chance to show it, and I have told him so. The times require the help of every man according to his gifts; and having neither partialities nor grudges to indulge, it will be my aim to practise on the maxim: ‘the tools to him that can handle them.’ ” He realized from the first that it was far from easy to bring the War Department up to the task of working an army of five hundred thousand men with machinery adapted to twelve thousand. He asked for patience and a reasonable time, and expressed the fear that the pressure for army appointments might tempt him “to quit the helm in despair.”

In all this the great secretary had Dana's best help, personally as well as through the columns of the Tribune. The entire country credited Stanton at this time with a larger share of the new spirit than he thought himself fairly entitled to, and this brought from him a remarkable despatch, which Dana withheld till he could send a correspondent to inquire if the secretary meant to “repudiate” the Tribune. The secretary had declared that he could not suffer undue merit to be ascribed to his official actions, that the glory of our recent victories in the West belonged to the gallant officers and soldiers who had won them, and that no share of it belonged to him; that he heard such phrases as “organizing victory” with apprehension, that “they commenced with infidel France in the Italian campaign and ended with Waterloo” ; that we might well rejoice at our recent victories because they were won as such victories were always won by boldly pursuing and striking the foe-and finally, that “the true organization ”