From Chattanooga, January 24, 1864, Major-General John M. Palmer writes:
I saw Grant yesterday and had a conversation with him. Peace-at-any-price men would have a hard bargain in him as their candidate. He is a soldier and, of course, regards negroes at their value as military materials. He has just enough sentiment and humanity about him to make him a careful general, and he esteems men, black or white, as too valuable to be wasted. He does not desire to be a candidate for the Presidency; prefers his present theatre of service to any other. Nor will the officers of the army willingly give him up. He has no enemies, and it is very difficult to understand how he can have any. He is honest, brave, frank, and modest. Is perfectly willing that his subordinates shall win all the reputation and glory possible; will help them when he can, with the most unselfish earnestness. He demands no adulation, and gives credit for every honest effort, and if efforts are unsuccessful he has the sense, and the sense of justice, to understand the reasons for failure and to attach to them their proper importance. Nobody is jealous of Grant and he is jealous of no one. He is not a great man. He is precisely equal to his situation. His success has been wonderful and must be attributed, I think, to his fine common sense and the faculty he possesses in a wonderful degree of making himself understood. I do not think he will be anybody's candidate for the Presidency this time, but after that his stock will be at a premium for anything he wants. Mr. Lincoln is popular with the army, and will, as far as the soldiers can vote, beat anything the Copperheads can start. No civilian or mere book-making general can get votes in the army against him.
J. K. Dubois, Springfield, January 30, says:
We are receiving daily old regiments who are reënlisting and are sent home on furlough for thirty days to see their friends and recruit. This is very damaging to the Copperhead crew of our state. They swear and groan over this fact, for they have preached and affirmed that the soldiers were held in subjection by their officers, and that as soon as their time was up they would show their officers and the President that they would have nothing more to do with this Abolition crusade. And so when these same men's time will have expired, commencing next June, they say to rebels both front and rear: "We were at the beginning of this fight and we intend also to be at the end." All honor to these brave and loyal men.
Israel B. Bigelow, Brownsville, Texas, May 5, 1864, says that before the war it was commonly said that soil and climate would regulate slavery.
In theory this was right if slavery was right, and whether right or wrong, slavery is declining, and with my very hearty concurrence—to my own astonishment. No man ever regarded a Massachusetts Abolitionist with greater abhorrence than myself, and yet I have subscribed to Mr. Lincoln's ironclad oath. Time works wondrous changes in men's feelings, and there are thousands of slaveholders in this state who, two years ago, cursed Mr. Lincoln and his Government, who are now willing to have their slaves freed if the war can be brought to an end.
We now come upon the first evidence of any difference, of a personal kind, existing between Senator Trumbull and President Lincoln. Opposing views on questions of public policy, such as the Confiscation Bill and arbitrary arrests, have already been noted. A difference of another kind is disclosed in a letter from N. B. Judd, Minister to Prussia. Judd had returned to his post after a visit to this country. He wrote to Trumbull under date, Berlin, January, 1864:
When I last saw you your conviction was that L. would be reëlected. I tell you combinations can't prevent it. Events possibly may. But until some event occurs, is it wise or prudent to give an impression of hostility for no earthly good? Usually your judgment controls your feelings. Don't let the case be reversed now. Although a severe thinker you are not constitutionally a croaker. Excuse the freedom of my writing. I have given you proofs that I am no holiday friend of yours.
The next piece of evidence found is a letter from Trumbull himself to H. G. McPike, of Alton, Illinois, one of the few letters of which he kept a copy in his own handwriting:
Washington, Feb. 6, 1864.
The feeling for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection seems to be very general, but much of it I discover is only on the surface. You would be surprised, in talking with public men we meet here, to find how few, when you come to get at their real sentiments, are for Mr. Lincoln's reëlection. There is a distrust and fear that he is too undecided and inefficient to put down the rebellion. You need not be surprised if a reaction sets in before the nomination, in favor of some man supposed to possess more energy and less inclination to trust our brave boys in the hands and under the leadership of generals who have no heart in the war. The opposition to Mr. L. may not show itself at all, but if it ever breaks out there will be more of it than now appears. Congress will do its duty, and it is not improbable we may pass a resolution to amend the Constitution so as to abolish slavery forever throughout the United States.