desire to talk. Influenced by these criticisms and menacings, on
December 30 the President ordered Burnside not to enter again upon
active operations without first informing him. Burnside, much surprised,
hastened to see Mr. Lincoln, and learned what derogatory strictures were
in circulation. After brief consideration he proposed to resign. But Mr.
Lincoln said: "I do not yet see how I could profit by changing the
command of the army of the Potomac; and, if I did, I should not wish to
do it by accepting the resignation of your commission." So Burnside
undertook further manoeuvres. These, however, did not turn out well, and
he conceived that a contributing cause lay in the half-heartedness of
some of his subordinates. Thereupon he designed against them a defensive
or retaliatory move in the shape of an order dismissing from the service
of the United States four generals, and relieving from command four
others, and one colonel. This wholesale decapitation was startling, yet
was, in fact, soundly conceived. In the situation, either the general,
or those who had lost faith in the general, must go. Which it should be
was conclusively settled by the length of the list of condemned. The
President declined to ratify this, and Burnside's resignation inevitably
followed. His successor was the general whose name led the list of those
malcontent critics whom he had desired to displace, and was also the
same who had once stigmatized McClellan as "a baby." Major-General
Joseph Hooker, a graduate of West Point, was now given the opportunity
to prove his own superiority.

The new commander was popularly known as "Fighting Joe." There was
inspiration in the nickname, and yet it was not quite thus that a great
commander, charged with weighty responsibility, should be appropriately
described. Upon making the appointment, January 26, 1863, the President
wrote a letter remarkable in many points of view:--