years of unnecessary slaughter. At the top, the North had a President and Secretary of War, distinguished members of the bar, but utterly unfamiliar with the technique and art of ending a war as quickly as possible. The country’s policies had placed them in this unfair position. There was no active general-in-chief of the armies. The Secretary of the Treasury was given the task of making an organization plan. Other members of the cabinet and bureau chiefs were given similar military problems. A group called the Second Aulic Council debated, fussed and mostly collapsed into grand meddling. It was the old story of a large cumbersome committee getting nowhere--a committee that rarely understood the vital needs of the occasion. So it was not surprising that the most ineffective soldier with military education was finally chosen as General-in-Chief, General Halleck. And he added to the confusion. Generals in the field didn’t know where they stood. They were promised troops that never arrived and shorn of troops they had with them. Their plans, by mail, telegraph or personal travel had to be approved in Washington before they could proceed. Often the opportunity passed before the veto or approval arrived. During his campaigns, McClellan received hundreds of telegrams, letters and courier packets a week, counseling one thing and then another--and often contradictory. He could not change his base, make a new plan, operate in a new place or go enthusiastically forward without first having his proposals crunch through the slow grinding mill of Washington. Commanders grew to be more fearful of the District of Columbia than the enemy. For it’s hard to fight to your back and front at the same time. And your back happens to give you more creeps.