The real difficulty at that time was best known to Lincoln
and his cabinet; the difficulty of organizing such large armies with so
small a number of trained and experienced officers. Good judges have
given an opinion that the practice of appointing noted politicians to
important commands lengthened the war at least two years, and one after
another, all these men had to be removed; but what else could the
government do? The officers of the regular army nearly all belonged to
the democratic party, and President Lincoln hardly knew whom he could
trust. Phillips knew as little of military affairs as Grant did of
oratory.
Just one year after the Brooklyn address, he was called upon to
celebrate the election of Abraham Lincoln in Boston Music Hall. For once
Phillips and his audience were in perfect harmony, and also in the best
of spirits. Men little dreamed at that time of the awful chasm that was
to open beneath them. His speech was full of the most delicious humor;
rather a biting humor at times, as we read it now, but it did not seem
so in the way he spoke it. It was like a wedding feast: laughter and
applause were so frequent that the wonder is that the speaker was able
to keep the thread of his discourse. Among a dozen witty passages, he
said, "Now I would like to have a law that one-third of our able men
should not be eligible for the presidency.
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