Public
policy forbade the President to make known all his grounds of
dissatisfaction with the general, and many of his own party openly
questioned his wisdom and his capacity to govern. Men whose
patriotism cannot be questioned shared in this distrust, and in
their private writings took the most gloomy view of the situation
and of the future of the country. This was intensified when Burnside
was so bloodily repulsed at Fredericksburg at the close of the first
week of the session. [Footnote: Mr. W. P. Cutler, Representative
from Ohio, a modest but very intelligent and patriotic man, wrote in
his diary under December 16th: "This is a day of darkness and peril
to the country... Lincoln himself seems to have no nerve or decision
in dealing with great issues. We are at sea, and no pilot or
captain. God alone can take care of us, and all his ways _seem_ to
be against us and to favor the rebels and their allies the
Democrats. Truly it is a day of darkness and gloom." "Life and
Times" of Ephraim Cutler, with biographical sketches of Jervis
Cutler and W. P. Cutler, p.296.]
As is usual in revolutionary times, more radical measures were
supposed by many to be the cure for disasters, and in caucuses held
by congressmen the supposed conservatism of Mr.
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