The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-31

The battle summer of 1854 saw the most
desperate and destructive fighting Of the
war. Grant after four months of terrible
conflict stood before Petersburg searching
with his sword for weak place in Lees
entrenched lines, while Sherman had
been six weeks before Atlanta without be-
ing able to burst open its gates with his
battle Ak. It was the third year of terri
bic expenditure of blood and treasure.
The summer of 1862 had been one of
Union disaster both East and West. Nc
Clellan had been repulsed before Rich
mond; Pope had been driven back on
Washington; Antietam was but q bloody
drawn battle; Fredericksburg was an aw-
full defeat. At the West there had been
nothing but discontinue after Shiloh
save the repulse of Price and Van Dorm by
Rosecrans in October. The year Of 1862
on the whole had been year Of defeat for
every Union general save Grant.
The year 1863 began with the nominal
victory at Stone river Of Rosecrans over
Bragg, but Hooker. the first week in May,
was badly beaten by Lee in Virginia. Then
Vicksburg. Then Rosecrans was defeated
at Chickamauga, and the year closed with
Grants victory at Chattanooga. After
these two years of terrible battle came a
third summer of terrific conflict, which;
as we have set forth, found the last week
in August Grant still outside of Peters,
burg and Sherman still pounding away at
Atlanta.
Lincoln had been renominated early in
June, but by the middle of August num-
Der of radical Republicans, who had been
depressed by the terrible pace of
the lighting and. impatient for
victory, had come to believe
that Lincoln lacked vigor as
military executive, organized formidable
secret movement to force the withdrawal
of the great chieftaira, and to procure the
substitution of q new Republican leader
before the election in November.
Among these radical Republicans, who
were anxious for victory and disposed to
charge Lincoln with a lack of military
vigor. were Charles Sumner, John Jay,
Henry Winter Davis, Benjamin F. Wade,
Horace Greeley. John c. Fremont, Salmon
p. Chase, Daniel s. Dickinson, Murat
Halsted and Richard Smith, of the Gin
cinnati Gazette. Horace Greeley wrote as
late as the middle of August: "Mr. Lin
coin is already beaten; he cannot be
elected; we must have another ticket to
save US from utter overthrow"
Whitelaw Reid was then q years Of age,
working in the office of the Cincinnati
Gazette, and he had been private secretary
to Salmon p. Chase. His views were nat
urally enough colored by those Of the en-
inent Republicans We have named and he
sympsthized and acted with them in this
movement for Lincoln's withdrawal,
which ended almost before it was fairly
bonn by the capture of Atlanta the first
week of September. After that victory
there was no more talk about withdrawing
Lincoln. who was trunphantly reelected.
Mr.. Reds youthful judgment of Lin
coins capacity to suppress the rebel
lion was erroneous, but he erred with
Il number of very much older and wiser
men, whose fervid devotion to the Union
and intense impatience for success made
them sincerely dissatisfied with Lincoln;
they did not see that it was only victory
deferred, not lost.
Mr.. Reid erred in his youthful estimate
of Lincoln in common with q number of
the truest, most earnest and most agrees
sivey patriotic statesmen of the Repub-
lican party, and that error of judgment is
nothing today to his discredit. Murat
Halsted. as late as February. 1863 wrote
Secretary Chase that Grant was IAN ass.
an idiot, drunkard, and begged him to
knock Lincoln's head against the WALL"
denouncing the great president as a COM
plete dullard, unequal to his position,
without courage or capacity.