General Halleck was made Commander-in-Chief of the Union forces in July, 1862, and September 1st McClellan was called to Washington. The day before he had written his wife that “as a matter of self-respect, I cannot go there.” President Lincoln and General Halleck called at McClellan’s house, and the President said: “As a favor to me, I wish you would take command of the fortifications of Washington and all the troops for the defense of the capital.” Lincoln thought highly of McClellan’s ability as an organizer and his strength in defense, yet any other President would have had him court-martialed for using this language, which appeared in McClellan’s letter of June 28th: “If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other person in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.” This letter, although addressed to the Secretary of War, distinctly embraced the President in the grave charge of conspiracy to defeat McClellan’s army and sacrifice thousands of the lives of his soldiers. DIDN’T WANT A MILITARY REPUTATION. Lincoln was averse to being put up as a military hero. When General Cass was a candidate for the Presidency his friends sought to endow him with a military reputation. Lincoln, at that time a representative in Congress, delivered a speech before the House, which, in its allusion to Mr. Cass, was exquisitely sarcastic and irresistibly humorous: “By the way, Mr. Speaker,” said Lincoln, “do you know I am a military hero? “Yes, sir, in the days of the Black Hawk War, I fought, bled, and came away. “Speaking of General Cass’s career reminds me of my own. “I was not at Stillman’s defeat, but I was about as near it as Cass to Hull’s surrender; and like him I saw the place very soon afterwards. “It is quite certain I did not break my sword, for I had none to break, but I bent my musket pretty badly on one occasion. “If General Cass went in advance of me picking whortleberries, I guess I surpassed him in charging upon the wild onion. “If he saw any live, fighting Indians, it was more than I did, but I had a good many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes, and although I never fainted from loss of blood, I can truly say that I was often very hungry.” Lincoln concluded by saying that if he ever turned Democrat and should run for the Presidency, he hoped they would not make fun of him by attempting to make him a military hero. “SURRENDER NO SLAVE.” About March, 1862, General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fortress Monroe, advised President Lincoln that he had determined to regard all slaves coming into his camps as contraband of war, and to employ their labor under fair compensation, and Secretary of War Stanton replied to him, in behalf of the President, approving his course, and saying, “You are not to interfere between master and slave on the one hand, nor surrender slaves who may come within your lines.”