The political conditions
under which the Army of the Potomac had so far constantly acted had
never allowed it to do justice to its numbers, mobility, or courage;
while Mr. Lincoln, who actually assumed the powers of commander-in-chief,
technically intrusted to him by the Constitution, was swayed to and fro
by his own fears for the safety of his capital, and by political schemes
and military obtuseness at his elbow.
Whether the tedious delays and deferred success, occasioned by these
circumstances, were not eventually a benefit, in that they enabled the
country to bring forth in the fulness of time the conditions leading to
the extinguishment of slavery, which an earlier close of the war might
not have seen; not to mention the better appreciation by either
combatant of the value of the other, which a struggle to the bitter end
alone could generate,--is a question for the political student. But it
will always remain in doubt whether the practical exhaustion of the
resources of the South was not a condition precedent to ending the
war,--whether, in sooth, the "last ditch" was not actually reached when
Lee surrendered at Appomattox.
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