If the newspapers of the North seemed too willing, without
sufficient military preparation, to tell the Government how the
war should be conducted, they were but doing what thousands
of others were doing, from the select coterie who dropped into
a metropolitan club for a little chat down to the farmers who
gathered around the stove beside the cracker barrel in the coun-
try grocery store. Much criticism has been made of these editors
who told McClellan how to take Richmond and advised Farra-
gut how to capture New Orleans, but the fact must not be lost
sight of that the close relation which existed between the press
and politics was not to be severed suddenly even by the outbreak
of a great war. Very often the suggestion of military criticism had
come from some official in Washington too petty to forget politi-
cal aspirations even at such a time as the Civil War.
Much of this criticism of newspaper generals was directed to- ward New York editors in general and toward Horace Greeley, of The Tribune, in particular. The latter, it must be remembered, had been the semi-official adviser of party officials and had been instrumental in nominating Lincoln at Chicago, and naturally thought it was his duty to advise the President, whom he con- sidered rather inexperienced for such great problems as now presented themselves for solution. Secretary of State Seward had been a partner of Greeley in party organs, and again it was perfectly natural for the editor of The Tribune to think himself equally, or even better, informed about international relations. Some of the carping criticism which Greeley bestowed upon Lincoln may have been due to the fact that the latter had ele- vated to the highest office within his power a man whom Greeley had "nipped at Chicago" for reasons already given in a preced- ing chapter.
The New York newspaper generals were favorite topics for the pens of the cartoonists of the period. One of the best products of their pen was a cartoon which caricatured Greeley, of The Tribune, Raymond, of The Times, and Bennett, of The Herald, as "The Three Bedlams" who were continually stirring the pot of "Governmental Botheration." Another cartoon was
