From July to the end of December, 1862, I went to the office before breakfast, then during the day, and then again in the evening. My only exercise was a ride on horseback after office hours and before dinner. When Pope's army was driven within the entrenchments of Washington, General Banks was made military commander of the district. I was then living in a house at the corner of G and Twenty-first Streets, which my friend Mr. Hooper tendered me during the recess of Congress upon the condition that I would retain, pay and maintain his servants. Among them was his cook, Monaky, who had been cook for Mr. Webster. When Fletcher Webster was killed, she was in great grief. I invited General Banks to make his quarters with me, and I had thus some means of knowing the condition of affairs in the army and around the district. While he was with me, we called upon General Hooker at the asylum, the Insane Hospital, on the east side of the east branch of the Potomac River, to which place he had been sent to be treated for a wound in his leg, which he had received at the Battle of Antietam. He was violent in his denunciation of McClellan for not using his entire force, and for not following the enemy--claiming that the whole body might have been destroyed. Barring his violence of language, and the impropriety of criticising his commander, there can be no doubt of the justice of what he said. McClellan retained upon the left bank of the Antietam, a body of men whose participation in the battle at the opportune moment would have changed a qualified victory into a rout of the enemy. Lee was saved at Antietam and at Gettysburg by the incompetency of McClellan and Meade. The movements by Lee in crossing the Potomac in 1862 and again in 1863 were most unfortunate for the Confederacy, and with Grant, or Sherman, or Sheridan, or Logan in command of our forces, must have resulted disastrously. It was the necessity of the situation that we were compelled to go to Lee, wherever he might choose to place himself. When he assumed the offensive, and abandoned his base, he exchanged positions, and greatly to his disadvantage. That he escaped destruction was due to his good fortune and to our incompetency and not to his own merit as commander. The Sunday morning after Pope's defeat, David Dudley Field called at my office at the Treasury, and after some conversation upon the condition of affairs, he said he wished to see the President. I aided him in securing an interview. What was the object of this interview with the President I cannot say, but his conversation led my mind to the conclusion that he thought himself qualified for the command of the army.