It was specially enjoined upon me to regulate my movements by those of the Army of the Potomac, so as to co-operate with it, and that both should move at the same moment, “rain or shine.” Early in the spring of 1864 the political campaign for the presidency was in progress. Indeed, the hopes of the most far-seeing rebel statesmen, and of General Lee especially, and the conduct of the military campaign by the enemy, were to a great extent regulated by the endeavor to hold on with such success in the war as to tire out the people of the North. This was done with the expectation that the Democrats and the Peace Party, as it was called, would be able to elect a President, who it was foreshadowed would be McClelan. This idea expressed itself in the Chicago Democratic Convention by the resolution that the war was a failure. Indeed, I have always believed that Lee's only hopes were to prolong the war with such success as might be gained until the presidential election should take place. I have blamed him because, when Lincoln was elected, which determined the fate of the Confederacy, the decision was not gracefully acceded to. It doubtless would have been except for the obstinacy of President Davis, who insisted upon the revocation of the proclamation of emancipation as one of the terms of peace. Secretary Chase was making a very strenuous endeavor to be the candidate of the Republican party, using, as he well might, all the great power of his office as Secretary of the Treasury for that purpose. In the early spring I was visited by one of his most confidential
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