To Simon Cameron

Hon. Sec. of War— Executive Mansion
My dear Sir— May 14. 1861

After you left here to-day, Mr. Blair came in; and, being told what we had been doing in relation to generals and colonels, he seemed to be dissatisfied. Would it not be better for you to see Mr. Blair, and ascertain what is the trouble with him? We should take some pains to avoid dissatisfaction among ourselves. Yours very truly A. LINCOLN

Although the circumstances of mobilization were so complex, not to say chaotic, that any succinct statement of the conflict between the War Department and other branches of the government is open to criticism, the basic difficulty seems to have been that the Army wished to keep, logically enough, some semblance of an orderly promotion of regular officers and integration of troops, while Montgomery Blair, as well as the governors of the loyal states and numerous individual politicians were demanding wholesale acceptance of volunteer regiments and elected officers. Cameron repeatedly refused to accept volunteer regiments, and there was much opposition to the appointment of “political” generals. Also, in the border states, the conflict between the War Department’s view of military rule and the political insistence upon subordination of the military to loyal local political exigencies brought about near chaos in such trouble spots as St. Louis.