On another occasion Mr. Lincoln said to me: "If the unworthy ambition of politicians and the jealousy that exists in the army could be repressed, and all unite in a common aim and a common endeavor, the rebellion would soon be crushed." He conversed with me freely and repeatedly on the subject of the unfairness and intemperance of his opponents in Congress, of the project of a dictatorship, etc. The reverses at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville Mr. Lincoln fully comprehended; and he believed them to have been caused by the absence of a proper support of Burnside and Hooker, prompted by the jealousies of other superior officers. The appointment of a general to the supreme command of the Army of the Potomac, made vacant by the resignation of General Burnside, became a question of urgent import. General Rosecrans was the choice of the Secretary of War. The President regarded it as inexpedient to make the appointment outside the general officers serving in the Army of the Potomac. Having little preference in the selection of a successor to General Burnside, Mr. Lincoln, after advisement, adopted the views of the military department of the government, and offered the chief command to General Reynolds. The latter, however, declined to accept the trust, unless a wider latitude of action were granted him than had hitherto been accorded to officers occupying this high post. The reverses in the field already referred to having occurred since General McClellan was relieved from the chief command of the Union forces, there now arose among his old companions-in-arms, and in the army generally, a clamor for his reinstatement as Commander of the Army of the Potomac. The propriety of such action was made the subject of a Cabinet consultation, which resulted in the rejection of an expedient so manifestly looking towards a dictatorship. A strong influence was now exerted by the immediate friends of General Hooker in behalf of his appointment as Commander-in-Chief,--some of them being prompted by personal ambition, others by even less worthy motives. These partisans of a worthy and deserving officer, whose aspirations were known to be entirely within the sphere of military preferment, united their forces with a powerful political coterie, having for their chief object the elevation of Mr. Chase to the Presidency upon the expiration of Mr. Lincoln's first term. It was believed by this faction that Hooker, in the event of his bringing the war to a successful conclusion, being himself unambitious of office, might not be unwilling to lend his prestige and influence to a movement in favor of that distinguished statesman as the successor of Mr. Lincoln in the Presidency. Up to the present time the war had been conducted rather at the dictation of a political bureaucracy than in accordance purely with considerations of military strategy. Hooker was appointed by the President under a full knowledge of his political affinities.