On his first visit to Washington after he became lieutenant-general, Grant found that it was the general expectation of members of Congress that he should infuse his personal energy into the next campaign of the army in Virginia. He learned also that the President, the Cabinet, and General Halleck despaired of the accomplishment of this by any stringency of orders from a distance, and thought it could be done only when he should be near enough to solve questions as they arose by his personal presence and influence. As a subordinate, few men could do better service than General Meade; but he seemed to develop a caution amounting almost to inaction in the presence of the Confederate Army under General Lee. This had allowed the Richmond government to send Longstreet's corps to reinforce Bragg at the west; and it was because the grand opportunity was not improved by Meade that it became necessary to send Hooker a thousand miles with the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps to reinforce Rosecrans. Halleck expressed the sentiment of the administration and of the country when he wrote to Grant on December 13th, "As General Meade's operations have failed to produce any results, Lee may send by rail reinforcements to Longstreet without our knowing it. This contingency must also be considered." [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. iii. p. 396.] It was, in fact, what Longstreet strenuously urged his government to do. As late as February 17th, when it was certain that Grant would soon be in command of all the National armies, Halleck, in a long letter of which the burden was that Lee's army must be made the objective in the Eastern campaign, plainly intimated that Meade could not give the Army of the Potomac the necessary aggressive energy. "Meade retreated before Lee with a very much larger force," he said, "and he does not now deem himself strong enough to attack Lee's present army." [Footnote: _Id_., vol. xxxii. pt. ii. pt. ii. p. 411] After mentioning the opportunities to break or defeat the enemy which had been lost or not improved at Antietam and Chancellorsville, he adds that of Meade after Gettysburg, and continues: "I am also of opinion that General Meade could have succeeded recently at Mine Run had he persevered in his attack." [Footnote: _Id_., p. 412.] Pointing out that McClellan had operated by exterior lines, and Burnside, Hooker, and Meade by interior ones, and that all had alike failed, he argues that this does not prove anything against either line of operation, whether by the James River or by Culpepper; but the sound military principle still is to avoid scattering the eastern army by North Carolina expeditions and the like, which were then mooted, and to concentrate the forces in the east against Lee's army and fight it out to a finish. [Footnote: _Id_. p. 413.] The letter is an able one, but the reference to it is now made for the sole purpose of showing how the problem was placed before General Grant when the