As far as our operations were concerned we had one great advantage.
Secretary Cameron authorized Mr. Scott (he had been made a Colonel) to
do what he thought necessary without waiting for the slow movements of
the officials under the Secretary of War. Of this authority unsparing
use was made, and the important part played by the railway and
telegraph department of the Government from the very beginning of the
war is to be attributed to the fact that we had the cordial support of
Secretary Cameron. He was then in the possession of all his faculties
and grasped the elements of the problem far better than his generals
and heads of departments. Popular clamor compelled Lincoln to change
him at last, but those who were behind the scenes well knew that if
other departments had been as well managed as was the War Department
under Cameron, all things considered, much of disaster would have been
avoided.
Lochiel, as Cameron liked to be called, was a man of sentiment. In his
ninetieth year he visited us in Scotland and, passing through one of
our glens, sitting on the front seat of our four-in-hand coach, he
reverently took off his hat and bareheaded rode through the glen,
overcome by its grandeur. The conversation turned once upon the
efforts which candidates for office must themselves put forth and the
fallacy that office seeks the man, except in very rare emergencies.
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