President Lincoln--as he himself put it in conversation one day with a
friend--“fairly ached” for his generals to “get down to business.” These
slow generals he termed “snails.”
Grant, Sherman and Sheridan were his favorites, for they were
aggressive. They did not wait for the enemy to attack. Too many of the
others were “lingerers,” as Lincoln called them. They were magnificent
in defense, and stubborn and brave, but their names figured too much on
the “waiting list.”
The greatest fault Lincoln found with so many of the commanders on the
Union side was their unwillingness to move until everything was exactly
to their liking.
Lincoln could not understand why these leaders of Northern armies
hesitated.