[521] the place at that time, had not enlightened him in the least. Consequently, when, on the evening of the 26th, Hooker telegraphed him that he intended to abandon this post, whose garrison, wanted elsewhere, was only a useless bait for the enemy, and asked him if he had any objection to this plan, he replied at once, formally refusing his consent except in a case of absolute necessity. This refusal was not prompted alone by military considerations more or less plausible. Inasmuch as Halleck immediately granted to Hooker's successor what he had refused to the former, we have a right to believe that the commander-in-chief had seized this opportunity to compel the commander of the Army of the Potomac to resign by depriving him of all freedom of action, without which he could not continue to perform the arduous task imposed upon him. Halleck's mistrust of Hooker was indeed no secret. The latter was fully aware of it, and, being unwilling that the personal animosity of which he was the victim should again compromise the fate of the army, on receipt of Halleck's reply—which he found at Frederick on his return from Harper's Ferry—he requested to be relieved of his command.
While waiting for the President's decision he made the new dispositions which Halleck's instructions rendered necessary. Unable to take French along with him, he relinquished his project of attacking Lee's rear in the Cumberland Valley. Slocum was recalled to Middletown,1 and all marching orders prepared so as to put the army on the march toward the North, following the eastern slopes of the mountains.
On the morning of the 28th, General Hardie arrived at Frederick with an order appointing General Meade to the command of the Army of the Potomac in place of Hooker. For the second time within the space of a year President Lincoln had selected the worst possible moment for making a change in the chief command of this army. This change might have been reasonable on the day following the battle of Chancellorsville; it was singularly inopportune at present, when the two armies were about to be engaged in a decisive conflict.
Far from justifying it, the manner in which Hooker had handled his army for the last fortnight deserved nothing but
