History of the United States, v.4, by James Ford Rhodes, 1910 [c1892].

Chapter 23, Part 1: Rosecrans’s Brilliant Strategy through Battle of the Wilderness

CHAPTER XXIII

Ten days after the battle of Gettysburg, as the story has been told, Lee with his army crossed the Potomac into Virginia.1 Meade followed leisurely. A campaign of manoeuvres ensued, with skirmishes and combats but no general battle, lasting until December, when both armies went into winter quarters on the soil of Virginia. Nothing from a military point of view had been gained by either side, but Meade had held Lee in check and had shown in this sort of warfare2 apparently equal alertness and skill.

After the battle of Stone's River,3 Rosecrans remained inactive for nearly six months, recuperating and resupplying his army and fortifying Murfreesborough. The government urged him forward, and persisted that he should drive the Confederates out of Tennessee and take Chattanooga. It was the McClellan drama played over again. The general complained of the lack of supplies, of forage, of revolving rifles for his mounted troops, of his great deficiency in cavalry as compared with his adversary, and in his correspondence with Stanton and Halleck displayed the art of a dexterous controversialist. At last, on June 24, he began to move, and inaugurated a campaign of brilliant strategy which made a momentous gain for Northern arms. Helped by the moral effect of Gettysburg and Vicksburg, he manoeuvred the Confederates under Bragg out of middle Tennessee, continued
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1 The night of July 13, ante, p. 296.
2 Meade's report, reports of Lee, O. R, vol. xxix. part L; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. chap. lx.; Life of Lee, Long, do. by Fitzhugh Lee; Walker, History 2d Army Corps; Humphreys, Gettysburg to the Rapidan.
3 Ante, p. 219.

his advance through a very difficult country, and, without having been obliged to fight a battle, marched on the 9th of September into Chattanooga, which with Richmond and Vicksburg constituted the three most important strategic points of the Southern Confederacy.1 In the mean time Burnside with the Army of the Ohio had advanced into East Tennessee and occupied Knoxville; he reported that he was "in the midst of friends," that he "found the people generally loyal and disposed to do all in their power for our comfort and welfare." 2 It seemed, indeed, as if the earnest desire of the President for the relief and possession of East Tennessee had at last been realized, but it soon turned out that in order to keep this territory the Union troops must fight for it.

Rosecrans was elated at the success of his strategy, and thought that Bragg was retreating southward. Eager to strike at the Confederate army, he ordered his troops in pursuit, and under the necessity of crossing the mountains at gaps far apart, separated widely his different corps and divisions.3 But Bragg had no idea whatever of making a retreat; on the contrary, he turned on his enemy. This movement placed Rosecrans in peril, and it became, as he himself relates, "a matter of life and death to effect the concentration of the army." 4 For nearly a week he wrought with the energy of desperation, and by September 18 the concentration was accomplished, not without some mischance; but the loss of sleep, the fear that Bragg might crush, one after another, his different detachments, as some now think he had it in his power to do, the intense anxiety on two successive nights for the safety of one of his corps: all these combined to unnerve the Union commander, who in the opinion of his army was "whipped" before he went into the battle which the
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1 See p. 173.
2 Report, O. R., vol. xxx. part ii. p. 549.
3 Report of Rosecrans; Dana to Stanton, September 12, O. R., vol. xxx. part i. pp. 53, 185.
4 Ibid., p. 54.

Confederate general was determined to bring on. Reinforced by troops from Johnston's army, which became available after the fall of Vicksburg, by Buckner's corps from Knoxville, by Longstreet's corps from the Army of Northern Virginia, Bragg outnumbered his opponent,1 and September 19 he began his attack. The action of that day was indecisive.2

This was the prelude to the fierce and bloody battle of Chickamauga, "the great battle of the West," which raged the next day and would have been an undecided contest or a Union victory, since the defensive position and the intrenchments compensated for the disparity of force, had it not been for the unfortunate mental state of Rosecrans. His army was the Army of the Cumberland, seasoned and intrepid soldiers, who, as their history shows, were able under proper command to do wonders, but in this case were affected by the spirit, as indeed they were sacrificed by the orders, which went out from headquarters. The battle was proceeding with varying fortune, when the execution of an ill-considered and unlucky order from the commanding general opened a gap in the line of battle, through which the Confederates poured, and, throwing two divisions into confusion and routing two others, drove a mass of soldiers panic-stricken from the field. Rosecrans was carried away in the crowd of fugitives, and, fearing that the whole army was vanquished, rode on into Chattanooga, twelve to fifteen miles away, for the purpose of taking measures for the defence of the city. Having on his arrival "the appearance of one broken in spirit,"8 he sent thence at five o'clock in the afternoon a despatch to Halleck, saying: "We have met with a serious disaster. . . . Enemy overwhelmed us, drove our right,
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1 Burnside, September 11, 13 (O. R, vol. xxx. part i. p. 34), was ordered to join Rosecrans; he disregarded the order, but I do not feel sure that any but his cavalry could have made the junction before the battle of Chickamauga.
2 Longstreet's corps had been transported by rail; only part of it was in the battle of September 19. Longstreet himself and nearly all the rest of the corps were engaged in the battle of the 20th.
3 Cist, p. 228.

pierced our centre, and scattered troops there."1 Charles A. Dana,2 "swept bodily off the battle-field by the panic-struck rabble," reached Chattanooga somewhat later than Rosecrans, but sent away an hour earlier his report, "Chickamauga is as fatal a name in our history as Bull Run." 8 To General George H. Thomas it was due that the four o'clock despatch of Dana, based on the vivid impressions gained from his position on the right of the army, where he had been with the commander, did not prove to be a correct account of this terrible battle. Thomas commanded the left wing of the army, and with 25,000 men repulsed during the whole afternoon the assaults of a force double his number, holding his position with such steadiness that he earned the title of the "Rock of Chickamauga." James A. Garfield, chief-of-staff of Rosecrans, borne away from the battle-field with the tide, obtained permission from his general, when they had attained a breathing-space, to turn back. He made his way to where the fight continued on the left, and sent at 8.40 p.m. this report: "General Thomas has fought a most terrific battle, and has damaged the enemy badly. . . . From the time I reached the battle-field (3.45 p. m.) till sunset the fighting was by far the fiercest I have ever seen. Our men not only held their ground, but at many points drove the enemy splendidly. . . . On the whole, Generals Thomas and Granger have done the enemy fully as much injury to-day as they have suffered from him, and they have successfully repelled the repeated combined attacks, most fiercely made, of the whole rebel army, frequently pressing the front and both flanks at the same time." 4 On the night of the 21st, under orders from Rosecrans, Thomas withdrew to Chattanooga.
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1 O. R., vol. xxx. part i. p. 142.
2 Assistant Secretary of War.
3 O. R., vol. xxx. part i. pp. 192, 193.
4 Ibid., p. 145. The Union army was 56,965, the Confederate 71,551 (this latter number being the conclusion of Maj. E. C. Dawes); Union loss 16,179, Confederate 17,804. — Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 673 et seq. Longstreet states that the forces engaged were: Confederate 59,242, Union 60,867. — From Manassas to Appomattox, p. 458.

The army went to work diligently, and made the place so strong that it could be taken only by a regular siege. Bragg commenced the investment of the city.

Before the battle of Chickamauga reinforcements from Grant at Vicksburg had been ordered to Rosecrans, but it took a week for the despatch to reach him; and while two divisions were on the way and two others were getting ready to move, all of them under the command of Sherman, word to this effect had not reached Washington.1 Telegrams from Rosecrans to the President, from Dana to Stanton, from Garfield to Chase, all urging the necessity of immediate reinforcements to hold Chattanooga and the Tennessee line, were received late in the evening of September 23;2 and Stanton, impressed with the need of prompt action, summoned a midnight conference. Lincoln, to whom John Hay brought the request at his summer abode, the Soldiers' Home, bestrode his horse and took his way this moonlight night to the War Department, where soon were assembled, besides the Secretary and three of his subordinates, Halleck, Seward, and Chase. Stanton proposed sending to Chattanooga troops from the Army of the Potomac; and while the President and Halleck were at first averse to this project, he was so earnest in advocating it that, with the support of Seward and Chase, he overbore their opposition, the council in the end agreeing that if Meade did not purpose an advance at once, the Eleventh and Twelfth corps under Hooker should be sent to Rosecrans. These sixteen thousand men were brought from Culpeper Court House, Virginia, to Washington by rail, there transferred to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and carried, via Wheeling, Columbus, Indianapolis, Louisville, and Nashville, to Stevenson and Bridgeport, Alabama. The time of transport, eight days, at that time showed excellent work.3
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1 O. R., vol. xxx. part i. pp. 37, 161, 162, vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 568.
2 Received 10.35 P. M. — Ibid., vol. xxx. part i. pp. 168, 197; Warden's Chase, p. 550.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 112; Warden's Chase, p. 550; O. R., vol xxix. part i. p. 146 et seq.

Yet something was necessary besides additional soldiers: another general must command. Rosecrans, who had lost through his defeat at Chickamauga all his buoyancy and prestige, became more irresolute than ever, and showed himself unable to cope with the difficulties of the situation. The danger lay in being forced to evacuate Chattanooga on account of a lack of supplies. The Confederates commanded the Tennessee River and the direct and good wagon roads on the south side of it; and while the Union army held the country north of it, their supplies had to be wagoned over long, circuitous, and rough mountain roads from Stevenson and Bridgeport, which had rail connections with Nashville. At the best the line of communication was difficult, but with the autumn rains it became exceedingly precarious. The army was verging on starvation, yet its commander was not busy with any plan which promised relief. "I have never seen a public man," said Dana, in a despatch to Stanton of October 12, "possessing talent with less administrative power, less clearness and steadiness in difficulty, and greater practical incapacity than General Rosecrans. He has inventive fertility and knowledge, but he has no strength of will and no concentration of purpose. His mind scatters; there is no system in the use of his busy days and restless nights. . . . He is conscientious and honest, just as he is imperious and disputatious." October 18 Dana describes the state of affairs thus: "Our condition and prospects grow worse and worse. The roads are in such a state that wagons are eight days making the journey from Stevenson to Chattanooga, and some which left on the 10th have not yet arrived. Though subsistence stores are so nearly exhausted here, the wagons are compelled to throw overboard portions of their precious cargo in order to get through at all. ... I rode through the camps here yesterday, and can testify that my previous reports respecting the starvation of the battery horses were not exaggerated. A few days more and most of them will be dead. If the effort which Rosecrans intends to make to open the river should be futile, the immediate retreat of this army will follow. It does not seem possible to hold out here another week without a new avenue of supplies. General Smith says that as he passed among the men working on the fortifications yesterday, several shouted 'crackers' at him. Amid all this the practical incapacity of the general commanding is astonishing, and it often seems difficult to believe him of sound mind His imbecility appears to be contagious, and it is difficult for any one to get anything done. ... If the army is finally obliged to retreat, the probability is that it will fall back like a rabble, leaving its artillery, and protected only by the river behind it. If, on the other hand, we regain control of the river and keep it, subsistence and forage can be got here, and we may escape with no worse misfortune than the loss of 12,000 animals."1

Two days before this despatch was received, the impression made by the despatches of Rosecrans himself, and the information contained in Dana's frequent and circumstantial accounts decided the government to place Grant in supreme command of all the military operations in the West except those under Banks. At Cairo, whither under instructions he had gone from Vicksburg, he received an order to proceed to Louisville, and on his way fell in with Stanton,2 who, disturbed by the gravity of affairs, had left Washington in order to have a personal conference with the general. Being invested with his new authority, Grant was given the option of retaining Rosecrans or of placing Thomas in the command of the Army of the Cumberland. He at once decided to relieve Rosecrans, and issued from Louisville, October 18, the necessary orders, telegraphing also to Thomas the next day to hold Chattanooga at all hazards. Thomas replied promptly: "We will hold the town till we starve."8 "I appreciated the force of this despatch later," writes Grant,
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1 O. R., vol. xxx. part i. p. 221; see also Grant's report, ibid., vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 29.
2 At Indianapolis.
3 C. W. Supplement, part i. p. 117; O. R., vol. xxx. part i. p. 5, vol. xxxi. part i. p. 666 et seq.; Grant's article, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 681.

"when I witnessed the condition of affairs which prompted it. It looked indeed as if but two courses were open, — one to starve, the other to surrender or be captured."1

Rosecrans had in mind a plan for securing a better line of supply. Thomas is authority for the statement that Rosecrans in consultation with William F. Smith, his Chief Engineer, "had partially planned the movement ... to open a short route of supplies from Bridgeport." "Preliminary steps," are words of Thomas in another report, "had already been taken to execute this vitally important movement before the command devolved upon me." 2 But the wisdom of Grant in placing Thomas in command was manifest. "The change at headquarters here is already strikingly perceptible," wrote Dana from Chattanooga, October 23. "Order prevails instead of universal chaos."3 Thomas at once pushed on the work which Rosecrans had begun.

Grant proceeded as rapidly as possible by rail from Louisville to Bridgeport, and thence must ride fifty-five miles over the road which served as the main line of supply for the army. Some weeks before, on a visit to New Orleans, he had a fall from a runaway horse, receiving severe injuries which still kept him on crutches. Through a chilling rain-storm he now rode with difficulty over the rough way, where in places, on account of the heavy rain and the wash-outs from the mountains, the mud was knee-deep, and he had to be carried over spots unsafe for him to cross on horseback. He relates that "the roads were strewn with the debris of broken wagons and the carcasses of thousands of starved mules and horses." 4 On the night of October 23 he arrived at Chattanooga, "wet, dirty, and well."5 "His clear eye and clear face"6 showed to his comrades-in-arms that he was mentally at his best; his
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1 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 684.
2 Mar. 9, 1866, C. W. Supplement, part i. p. 118; November 7, 1863, 0. R. vol. xxxi. part i. p. 42; Report of Board of Army Officers upon claim of General W. F. Smith, Washington, 1901, passim.
3 0. R. vol. xxxi. part i. p. 69.
4 Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 684.
5 Dana, O. R. vol. xxxi. part i. p. 70; see Horace Porter's interesting account, Century Magazine, November 1896, p. 19.
6 Life of Grant, Church, p. 198.

energy and enterprise extending to the officers and diffused through the rank and file, the impetus communicated to the operations, the marvellous change from the regime of Rosecrans, all indicate that a compeller of men, like Caesar and Napoleon, like Robert E. Lee, was at the head of affairs.

The morning after his arrival he made a reconnaissance in company with Thomas and Smith, approved their project, and urged its prompt execution. The result of the operations of the few days thereafter, he has told in a despatch to Halleck of October 28: "General Thomas's plan for securing the river and south side road hence to Bridgeport has proved eminently successful. The question of supplies may now be regarded as settled. If the rebels give us one week more time, I think all danger of losing territory now held by us will have passed away, and preparations may commence for offensive operations."1

Thus the situation had appeared to Bragg: "Possessed of the shortest road to the depot of the enemy, and the one by which reinforcements must reach him, we held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time." 2 The seizure by the Union troops of this advantageous line of supply was a bitter disappointment to him, and he endeavored, without success, to recover it by a night attack. The dissensions in the Confederate army were conspicuous; the corps commanders made no secret of their lack of confidence in the generalship of their chief. October 9 Jefferson Davis had made a five days' visit to the army, and tried to patch up the
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1 O. R., vol. xxxi. part i. p. 56. As Thomas was commander of the department, and had adopted the plan, the ascription of it to him by Grant was formal. Thomas said in his report: "To General W. F. Smith should be accorded great praise for the ingenuity which conceived and the ability which executed the movement at Brown's Ferry." —Thomas's report, C. W. Supplement, part i. p. 119. In his report of November 7 he said : "The skilful execution by General Smith of the work assigned him, and the promptness with which General Hooker, with his troops, met and repulsed the enemy on the night of the 28th, reflects the greatest credit on both of those officers and their entire commands."— 0. R. vol. xxxi. part i. p. 42. See Report of Board of Army Officers, Washington, 1901, passim.
2 Report, December 28, O. R. vol. xxx. part ii. p. 37.

quarrels, but had failed in the undertaking. In the first week of November Bragg detached Longstreet and his corps for an expedition against Knoxville and the troops which held it under Burnside. This proved to be an injudicious movement. Yet the President and General Grant were anxious lest Burnside might be defeated and driven from East Tennessee; and when Grant learned of Longstreet's departure, he determined to attack the Confederates, with the expectation that this force would be recalled. From this attempt he was dissuaded by Thomas and Smith, and became convinced that it was "utterly impracticable "1 to take the offensive until Sherman should arrive.

Sherman was coming along as fast as possible, but river transportation from Vicksburg to Memphis was attended with difficulty. "Our progress was slow," he wrote, "on account of the unprecedentedly low water in the Mississippi and the scarcity of wood and coal. We were compelled at places to gather fence rails, and to land wagons and haul wood from the interior to the boats."2 Reaching Memphis October 2, his troubles grew. He had three hundred miles to go through the enemy's country, and construed his instructions from Halleck to mean that he should follow the Memphis and Charleston Railroad eastward, repairing it as he moved forward, that it might serve for the transport of his troops and for a line of supply. He set out. Part of his soldiers went by rail; the rest marched, encountering considerable resistance on the way. At Iuka, October 27, a messenger, who had made most of his journey by paddling down the Tennessee in a canoe, under a continual fire from guerillas, handed him a despatch from Grant, saying, "Drop everything . . . and move with your entire force toward Stevenson." 3 He pushed on with vigor, and rode into Chattanooga November 15. His soldiers, who will be mentioned hereafter as the Army of the Tennessee, were close behind him.
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1 Grant's report, O. R., vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 29.
2 Sherman's report, December 19, ibid., p. 569.
3 Ibid., part i. p. 713, part ii. p. 571; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 357.

Grant had already matured his plan of attack, and at the earliest moment put it into execution. November 23 Thomas made a reconnaissance in force "in the most gallant style, driving the enemy from his first line, and securing" important ground1 At midnight Sherman began to cross the Tennessee, his men capturing all the Confederate pickets but one on the east bank of the river, and by daylight he had 8000 men over, and a rifle-trench dug to serve as the head of a pontoon bridge about to be constructed. Of this operation Sherman wrote: "I will here bear my willing testimony to the completeness of this whole business. All the officers charged with the work were present, and manifested a skill which I cannot praise too highly. I have never beheld any work done so quietly, so well, and I doubt if the history of war can show a bridge of that extent (viz. 1350 feet) laid down so noiselessly and well in so short a time. I attribute it to the genius and intelligence of General William F. Smith."2 By one o'clock in the afternoon [November 24] the bridge was completed. The rest of the army crossed over, and gained and held "the whole of the northern extremity of Missionary Ridge to near the railroad tunnel."3

"Hooker," wrote Grant, "carried out the part assigned him for this day [November 24] equal to the most sanguine expectations."4 Through driving mists and rains he fought "above the clouds," and won the battle of Lookout Mountain. "Thus on the night of the 24th," is the report of Grant, "our forces maintained an unbroken line with open communications from the north end of Lookout Mountain through Chattanooga valley to the north end of Missionary Ridge."5 At daylight6 the stars and stripes waved from the most prominent place in the region, the peak of Lookout. This was a harbinger of victory. Sherman began the battle on the
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1 Grant, Report of December 23, O. R., vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 32; Dana to Stanton, November 23, ibid., p. 65.
2 Sherman, Report of December 19, ibid., p. 573.
3 Grant's report, O. R., vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 33.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 November 25.

left against a strong force massed in his front, and had a close, stubborn struggle without gaining advantage. About the middle of the afternoon the word was given to Thomas's soldiers, who held the centre, to advance. They carried the first line of rifle-pits, and should have halted for further commands, but were exposed to a murderous fire, and would not fall back. Without orders, indeed in spite of orders, those twenty thousand Western soldiers and their immediate officers, conspicuous among whom was Sheridan, rushed up Missionary Ridge, carried it, and drove away, in panic, the Confederates.

Grant and Thomas were on Orchard Knob, watching the battle. When the troops broke away, Grant demanded, "By whose orders is this?" "By their own, I fancy," was the slow and measured reply of Thomas,1 a testimony to the spirit of initiative which distinguished his soldiers. Dana, who witnessed the charge, gave, the next day, this account of it: "The storming of the ridge by our troops was one of the greatest miracles in military history. No man who climbs the ascent by any of the roads that wind along its front can believe that 18,000 men were moved up its broken and crumbling face unless it was his fortune to witness the deed. It seems as awful as a visible interposition of God. Neither Grant nor Thomas intended it. Their orders were to carry the rifle-pits along the base of the ridge, and capture their occupants; but when this was accomplished the unaccountable spirit of the troops bore them bodily up those impracticable steeps, over the bristling rifle-pits on the crest and the thirty cannon enfilading every gully. The order to storm appears to have been given simultaneously by Generals Sheridan and Wood, because the men were not to be held back, dangerous as the attempt appeared to military prudence. Besides, the generals had caught the inspiration of the men, and were ready themselves to undertake impossibilities."2
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 150; see another account of this incident, Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 725.
2 O. R., vol. xxxi. part ii. p. 69.

At 4.30 p.m. Dana telegraphed to Stanton: "Glory to God. The day is decisively ours;" and a few hours later, "Our men are frantic with joy and enthusiasm, and received Grant as he rode along the lines after the victory with tumultuous shouts."1 "Bragg is in full retreat, burning his depots and bridges," telegraphed Dana the next day.2 Some pursuit was made without material result. Sherman was sent to the relief of Burnside, and his approach caused Longstreet to raise the siege of Knoxville.

The action of November 25 is called the battle of Missionary Ridge; that of the three days the battle of Chattanooga.3 Chattanooga and Knoxville, which commanded East Tennessee, were secured by this victory, and were not afterwards retaken by the Confederates. The result of the campaign denoted the waning fortune of the Southern cause. The news of Missionary Ridge reached the people of the North on the last Thursday of November, and gave them the first genuine Thanksgiving since the commencement of the civil war.4

Having assumed the power of a dictator, the President could not, for a long while together, dispense with the support of the people, whose opinion found its clearest manifestation at
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1 O. R. vol. xxxi. part ii. pp. 68, 69.
2 Ibid., p. 70.
3 The effective strength of the Union army was 60,000, that of the Confederate 20,000 less. The loss of the Union force 6816, Confederate 6687. — Century War Book, vol. iii. p. 729; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 155.
4 My authorities for this account of the campaigns of Chickamauga and Chattanooga are the correspondence and the reports of Rosecrans, Burnside, Bragg, Longstreet, Halleck, Grant, Sherman, W. F. Smith, Meigs, Hooker, Sheridan, in O. R., the several parts of vol. xxx. and vol. xxxi.; C. W., 1865, vol. iii., Supplement, part i.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii.; articles of D. H. Hill, Grant, Smith, Cist, Fullerton, Century War Book, vol. viii.; Dodge, A Bird's-Eye .View of the Civil War; Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii.; Sherman's Memoirs, vol. i.; Van Horne, Life of Thomas, History of the Army of the Cumberland; Sheridan's Memoirs, vol. i.; Cist, The Army of the Cumberland; Longstreet, From Manassas to Appomatox; Life of Grant, Church; Warden's Chase; Military History of Grant, Badeau, vol. i.; Chas. A. Dana's Reminiscences, McClure's Magazine, February and March, 1898; Report of Board of Army Officers upon claim of General W. F. Smith, Washington, 1901.

the regular fall elections. These of 1863 were almost entirely for state officers, but there were circumstances which gave to some of them a very great importance. For this reason Lincoln, feeling, since Gettysburg and Vicksburg, firmer in his seat and more confident of his measures, took the occasion, in his reply to an invitation to be present at a mass meeting of unconditional Union men at his old home of Springfield, Illinois, to write a letter which may be called a stump speech or a powerful argument and appeal to the people for their support of his policy in carrying on the war. "It would be very agreeable to me to thus meet my old friends at my own home," he wrote, August 26, "but I cannot just now be absent from here so long as a visit there would require.

"The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those and other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life.

"There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say: You desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways: First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. Are you for it? If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range, in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise if one were made with them.

"To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? Meade's army can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and, I think, can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers of Lee's army are not agreed can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we should waste time which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control the rebel army, or with the people first liberated from the domination of that army by the success of our own army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from that rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and insinuations to the contrary are deceptive and groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept a secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself the servant of the people, according to the bond of service — the United States Constitution — and that, as such, I am responsible to them.

"But to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose you do not. Yet I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your view, provided you are for the Union. I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way as to save you from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means.

"You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. [The next few sentences but one I cited in Chap. XVIII.] . . .

"But the proclamation, as law, either is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better after the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation issued; the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming, unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favorably for us since the issue of the proclamation as before. I know, as fully as one can know the opinions of others, that some of the commanders of our armies in the field, who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion, and that at least one of these important successes could not have been achieved when it was but for the aid of black soldiers. Among the commanders holding these views are some who have never had any affinity with what is called Abolitionism, or with Republican party politics, but who hold them purely as military opinions. I submit these opinions as being entitled to some weight against the objections often urged that emancipation and arming the blacks are unwise as military measures, and were not adopted as such in good faith.

"You say you will not fight to free negroes. Some of them seem willing to fight for you; but no matter. Fight you, then, exclusively, to save the Union. I issued the proclamation on purpose to aid you in saving the Union. Whenever you shall have conquered all resistance to the Union, if I shall urge you to continue fighting, it will be an apt time then for you to declare you will not fight to free negroes.

"I thought that in your struggle for the Union, to whatever extent the negroes should cease helping the enemy, to that extent it weakened the enemy in his resistance to you. Do you think differently? I thought that whatever negroes can be got to do as soldiers, leaves just so much less for white soldiers to do in saving the Union. Does it appear otherwise to you? But negroes, like other people, act upon motives. Why should they do anything for us if we will do nothing for them? If they stake their lives for us, they must be prompted by the strongest motive, even the promise of freedom. And the promise being made must be kept.

"The signs look better. [The next seven sentences are cited on page 318.] . . . While those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that anything has been more bravely and well done than at Antietam, Murfreesboro' [Stone's River], Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web feet be forgotten. At all the watery margins they have been present. Not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all: for the great republic — for the principle it lives by and keeps alive — for man's vast future — thanks to all.

"Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. [The next sentence and part of the second are cited on page 333.] . . .

"Still, let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result."1

In going to the people nothing aids a party more than an honest and positive declaration of public policy. Such an one, coming from the President, upheld by arguments the inherent force of which was increased by the dignity and power of his office, had an immeasurable influence in rallying to his support the thinking and patriotic voters of the North; and it is safe to say that had the result of the elections been
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1 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 396.

really in doubt after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, the tide would have been turned by the timely and unanswerable logic of this letter. The feeling in the hearts of many hundred thousands was expressed by the New York Tribune: "Again we say, God bless Abraham Lincoln!'

The promise must be kept.'"1 The most important election was that in Ohio, for the reason that by the enthusiastic and almost unanimous nomination of Vallandigham for governor by the Democrats the issue had practically come to be Vallandigham or Lincoln. "The canvass in Ohio," wrote John Sherman, "is substantially between the Government and the Rebellion, and is assuming all the bitterness of such a strife."2 For three months the business of the people seemed to be the political contest The Democrats held large and enthusiastic meetings all over the State, the estimates of their size running in many cases to twenty, thirty, and forty thousand,3 and able speakers who engaged earnestly in the work received a close attention from these large audiences.4 Angry vehemence characterized the meetings of both parties, and the face-to-face discussions day by day of the partisans of both sides. Extreme Democrats contended with ultra Republicans, and quarrels were frequent which ruptured the friendships of years. Vallandigham was called a traitor and a convict; Lincoln, on the other hand, was termed a usurper, a tyrant, and a despot, and given the title of King Abraham.

The real strength of the Democratic canvass lay in their emphatic declarations that their cause was that of civil liberty;
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1 September 3.
2 August 29, Sherman Letters, p. 214.
3 For example: Beliefontaine, 15,000, Circleville, 40,000, Kenton, 25,000, Upper Sandusky, 40,000 to 50,000, Chillicothe, 35,000, Hamilton, 30,000, Springfield, 30,000 to 40,000, Wooster, 30,000 to 40,000, New Lexington, 20,000 to 30,000, Ottawa, 15,000, Piqua, 20,000 to 25,000, Mt. Vernon, 40,000 to 50,000. —Columbus (Ohio) Crisis, August 5, 12, September 16, 30. Of course these numbers are exaggerated.
4 Among the speakers were A. G. Thurman, George E. Pugh, George H. Pendleton, D. W. Voorhees, S. S. Cox, William Allen, George W. Morgan.

that their candidate stood for freedom of speech and for freedom of the press; that his arrest, trial, and banishment were unjust, and that his enforced exile spoke loudly for redress: these cries dwarfed all other issues. The feeling inspiring the Democrats of Ohio, it was asserted, is the spirit of '76; it is the courage which actuated the barons on the meadow of Runnymede. A story about Seward, made up apparently out of whole cloth, became an effective illustration of the argument. "My lord," he was reported to have said to Lord Lyons, "I can touch a bell on my right hand and order the arrest of a citizen of Ohio; I can touch a bell again and order the imprisonment of a citizen of New York; and no power on earth except that of the President can release them. Can the Queen of England do so much?" That this story, by dint of iteration and, in spite of denials, by reiteration with circumstantial details, came to be thoroughly believed, is not strange; for while Seward probably made no such remark, he and Stanton had caused many arrests with no more formality than a telegraphic despatch.1

The Union party nominated for governor John Brough, a war Democrat, an industrious and persuasive stump-speaker, who prosecuted his canvass with zeal, receiving from his party effective assistance.2 Their mass-meetings were many
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1 I have searched the printed correspondence of Lord Lyons with his government, and find no authority whatever for the story. One account (Cincinnati Enquirer, cited by Columbus Crisis, June 10) ran that the conversation took place November 16, 1861, and was in the diplomatic correspondence printed in the New York Times, March 1, 1862. But it is not there. Thinking that it may have come from some indiscreet remark of Seward which got into the newspapers, I have had a search made in the journals of November and Dec, 1861, but found no trace of it. Nor did I run across it in 1862. In 1863 it became a stock illustration for Democratic argument. But a misrepresentation dies hard. On the frontispiece of Marshall's American Bastile (1870) this remark is quoted as the explanation of a startling, though truthful enough, pictorial illustration. On p. xiii it is referred to as undisputed historical truth. As such it is quoted by S. S. Cox, Three Decades, p. 275.
2 Among the speakers were Senators Sherman and Wade, Senator Zach. Chandler of Michigan, Geo. W. Julian, A. G. Riddle, John A. Bingham, Judge Luther Day (a War Democrat).

and enthusiastic, but fell short probably in numbers of those which gathered out of warm sympathy with the cause of Vallandigham. The Union speakers maintained that the only issue was whether the government should be supported in its conduct of the war, and argued adroitly that a vote for Vallandigham was equivalent to one for Jefferson Davis, and that his election would be as hurtful to the country as would a terrible defeat of the soldiers in the field.1 They were listened to gladly by earnest men and women throughout the State, and awakened a high spirit of patriotism. The most interesting assemblies were those of the farmers, who giving, as they termed it, a day to the country, brought their wives, daughters, and sons to the mass-meeting in order that all might understand the issue submitted to the people. At a meeting at Jefferson, Ashtabula County, a district of high political intelligence, Julian, the last of the speakers, was called for a short while before sunset, and after speaking forty-five minutes proposed to stop, as the people had stood for four hours in a cold and drizzling rain; but he received from them in answer the emphatic shout, "Go on." "Go ahead," said a farmer. "We '11 hear you; it's past milking-time, anyhow." "It seemed to me," writes Julian, "that I had never met such listeners. I was afterwards informed that the test of effective speaking on the Reserve is the ability to hold an audience from their milking when the time for it comes."2

In spite of the earnest and enthusiastic assemblies of those devoted to the President and the government, the Vallandigham meetings were such impressive outpourings of the people that on the eve of the election considerable doubt existed whether Brough would have a majority of the home vote. The result amazed both Union men and Democrats, and was a testimony of the silent, unobtrusive voters who are sure to come out when the sentiment of the people is really
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1 "Not only the people of the loyal but those of the disloyal States and of England feel that the fate of the Union rests upon the result of the election in Ohio on the second Tuesday in October." — New York Tribune, October 3.
2 Political Recollections, p. 236.

aroused. In an aggregate greater than at any previous election in Ohio, Brough received a majority from the citizens of 61,920, and from the soldiers who were permitted by law to vote in the field, 39,179, a total of over 101,000.! It was the expression of an overwhelming and just opinion in favor of the government and a continuance of the war.2 While 185,000 citizens and 2200 soldiers gave their voices for Vallandigham, it is gratifying to believe that a large portion of them did not sympathize with his extreme and uncompromising opposition to the conduct of the war.
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1 The election took place October 13.
2 As the two parties did not exactly join issue, each evading to some extent the presentation of the other, it is difficult to say what was the pronouncement of the people of Ohio on arbitrary arrests and "drum-head court-martials" (a favorite expression of the Democrats). If I may trust my own memory, which is vivid of this canvass (I was living in Ohio at the time), supported as it is by a fair inference from the contemporary evidence, I can assert that the position of the mass of those who voted for Brough was that of acquiescence in this arbitrary exercise of authority, being brought to it by their deep trust in Lincoln, which was overmastering in the autumn of 1863. douard Laboulaye, who had some sort of the same discernment possessed by De Tocqueville, in a course of lectures at the College de France in 1864 said: "L'Amerique, malgre la guerre, a conserve" la liberty. Je sais que l'on dit le contraire; mais si vous lisiez Ies journeaux americains, si vous voyiez la facon dont le president des Etats-Unis, M. Abraham Lincoln, est traite, vous seriez vite ecline sur ce qu'est en Amerique cette pretendue compression de la liberte. . . . L'Amerique est assez forte pour n'avoir pas peur de la liberte. Quant au despotisme, les journeaux americains se sont amuses de nos terreurs europeennes; il leur est difficile de prendre au serieux Abraham 1«, empereur des Americains. M. Abraham Lincoln ne sera certainement pas l'empereur de 1'Amerique. On lui a donne un nom que l'histoire ratifiera; ce sera l'honnete Abraham, le citoyen qui n'a pas desespere de la patrie, le magistrat qui a deiendu energiquement la cause de la liberte et de l'Union; ce titre lui suffit, et a vrai dire il est plus beau que celui de Cesar." — Laboulaye, Histoire des Etats-Unis, t. iii. p. 50. Any one who has sat at the feet of Laboulaye may easily conjure up the animation and emphasis that he would give to these words.
J. R. Lowell wrote in the North American Review, January, 1864, p. 257: "It is a harmless pleasantry to call Mr. Lincoln 'Abraham the First,' — we remember when a similar title was applied to President Jackson; and it will not be easy, we suspect, to persuade a people who have more liberty than they know what to do with, that they are the victims of despotic tyranny."

On the same day as the election in Ohio, Curtin, one of the celebrated war governors, was re-elected governor of Pennsylvania by a good majority. The canvass was notable in that General McClellan, much to the disappointment of Curtin, identified himself with the Democratic party by writing a public letter in support of its candidate. In Indiana, county officers were chosen, in Iowa there was a state election: in both States the Union party was successful.

New York voted in November, and the Union candidate for Secretary of State was elected by a majority of 29,000. The result was regarded as a rebuke to Governor Seymour. "As to Massachusetts," wrote Motley from Vienna, "of course I should as soon have thought of the sun's forgetting to rise as of her joining the pro-slavery Copperheads."1 This Commonwealth chose Andrew again for governor by 41,000 majority. All the Northern States but New Jersey voted with the Union party, which carried also Maryland, Kentucky, and Delaware. Motley, with a remarkable power in pointing a result, wrote: "The elections I consider of far more consequence than the battles; or, rather, the success of the anti-slavery party and its steady increasing strength make it a mathematical certainty that, however the tide of battle may ebb and flow with varying results, the progress of the war is steadily in one direction. The peculiar institution will be washed away, and with it the only possible dissolvent of the Union."2

It is interesting to note, in two important particulars, the action of the President, whose concern in regard to the political campaign was second only to that touching the military
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1 November 17, Letters, vol. ii. p. 143.
2 Ibid. My authorities are the flies of the Columbus (Ohio) Crisis, New York Tribune and World, especially the Crisis of July 1, 8, 15, 22, August 5, 19, 26, September 2, 9, 16, October 7; the Tribune, September 17, 30, October 3, 15; World, September 15, 29, October 14; Life of Vallandigham by his brother; Morse's Lincoln, vol. ii.; Nicolay and Hay, vol. vii.; Tribune Almanac; Appleton's Annual Cyclopaedia, 1863; Julian, Political Recollections; Riddle, Recollections of War Times; John Sherman's Recollections, vol. i.; Greeley's American Conflict, vol. ii.; McPherson's Political History

operations. Despite the issue which the Democrats in the Ohio canvass had brought to the front, he felt obliged, on account of many discharges of drafted men and deserters by judges apparently disposed to defeat the object of the Conscription Act, to suspend, by a proclamation of September 15, the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus throughout the United States. The cases in which the suspension should apply were stated in general terms. This proclamation was under the authority of the Act of Congress of March 3, 1863,1 and referred to it, while the gist and manner of the edict were suggested by Secretary Chase, the best lawyer in the cabinet, who, unlike Seward and Stanton, brothers in the profession, did not believe that the laws should be silent in the midst of arms. This procedure differed from the exercise of arbitrary powers previously referred to; owing to the advice and insistence of Chase, it was regular, and it may receive our approval.2

Chase set down in his diary a pretty full account of the two cabinet meetings which considered this comprehensive suspension of the habeas corpus, but he neither asserts nor intimates that there was any expression of opinion whatever that it would be politic to withhold the proclamation until after the elections. In connection with this circumstance, it is an indication of public sentiment that the President deemed it prudent to defer a fresh call for troops until after the October States had voted. Four days thereafter, October 17, he issued a proclamation calling out 300,000 volunteers "for three years or the war, not, however, exceeding three years," while any deficiencies in the quotas of any State should be filled by a draft to commence January 5, 1864.3 His immediate action in the one case, and his waiting in the
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1 See p. 236.
2 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 406; Diary of Chase, MS.; Warden's Chase, pp. 543, 545, 554; New York Tribune, World, September 16. In the enumeration of offenders and offences there were two clauses open perhaps to abuse.
8 Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 425.

other, taken in connection with the unmistakable drift of opinion for the past two years, showed that the people of the North were more ready now to applaud stretches of executive authority than to enlist for the war or even to hire mercenaries to fill the ranks.

During the summer and autumn the designs of the Emperor of the French, the progress of his conquest of Mexico, the steps taken towards the establishment of an imperial government for that country, the offer of the throne to Archduke Maximilian of Austria caused considerable uneasiness in the country, and lessened materially the animosity against England, so apparent earlier in the year. Lowell, in a letter to Thomas Hughes, undoubtedly expressed the sentiment of the country. "Pray don't believe a word he [the American correspondent of the London Times] says about our longing to go to war with England," he wrote. "We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality, but the last thing we want is another war. If the rebel iron-clads are allowed to come out, there might be a change."1 When the iron-clads were stopped, there was a great feeling of relief, which began to develop into amity.

The friendly welcome of a Russian fleet of war vessels, which arrived in New York City in September; the enthusiastic reception by the people of the admiral and officers when offered the hospitalities of the city; the banquet given at the Astor House by the merchants and business men in their honor; the marked attention shown them by the Secretary of State on their visit to Washington,2 "to reflect the cordiality and friendship which the nation cherishes towards Russia": all these manifestations of gratitude to the one great power of Europe which had openly and persistently been our friend, added another element to the cheerfulness which prevailed in the closing months of 1863.3
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1 September 9, Lowell's Letters, vol. i. p. 333.
2 The President was ill.
3 New York World, September 26, Tribune, October 2, 13; Harper's Magazine, November 1863, p. 848 ; Diplomatic Correspondence, 1864, part iii. p. 279; Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 146. In the reference of General Banks in the House of Representatives in 1868 to this circumstance as cited by Blaine, Twenty Years of Congress, vol. ii. p. 334, there is some exaggeration.

The circumstances under which the President sent his message to Congress, December 8, were far different from those existing at the corresponding time the year previous, when, on account of successive military defeats, all was gloom; and the days succeeding were not destined to be like those of 1862, when Congress had not fairly started on its work before the crushing disaster of Fredericksburg increased the dejection of those in authority and of the people at large. Yet the House of Representatives was not so friendly, politically, to the administration as the preceding one. It had been chosen for the most part during the Democratic reaction in the autumn of 1862, but by statutory rule it did not meet until the first Monday of December, 1863, — an arrangement in a government of the people difficult to defend, inuring, however, to the benefit of the President in this case, as in the gloomy winter of 1862-63 it was well that he had at his back the strong majority of the House elected in 1860. The House of the Thirty-eighth Congress1 had 102 Republicans and unconditional Unionists, 75 Democrats, 9 Border State men.2 The election of the speaker furnished a measure of the partisan division; 101 members voted for Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, while 81 gave their voices for several different candidates named by the opposition. The Senate was controlled decisively by the party of the administration: 36 were Republicans and unconditional Unionists, 9 were Democrats, and 5 conditional Unionists.3

The President began his message: "Another year of health and of sufficiently abundant harvests has passed. For these, and especially for the improved condition of our national affairs, our renewed and profoundest gratitude to God is due."
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1 The one assembling December 7, 1863.
2 Classification of the Tribune Almanac.
3 Ibid.

He recommended the encouragement of immigration. "Although this source of national wealth and strength," he said, "is again flowing with greater freedom than for several years before the insurrection occurred, there is still a great deficiency of laborers in every field of industry, especially in agriculture, and in our mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals. While the demand for labor is thus increased here, tens of thousands of persons, destitute of remunerative occupation, are thronging our foreign consulates, and offering to emigrate to the United States if essential, but very cheap, assistance can be afforded them. It is easy to see that, under the sharp discipline of civil war, the nation is beginning a new life."1

In January of this year Congress had been obliged to pass a resolution of emergency providing for the immediate issue of $100,000,000 greenbacks for the discharge of the arrears of pay due the soldiers and sailors.2 Now the President could say: "All demands on the treasury, including the pay of the army and navy, have been promptly met and fully satisfied. No considerable body of troops, it is believed, were ever more amply provided and more liberally and punctually paid; and it may be added that by no people were the burdens incident to a great war ever more cheerfully borne."

While the navy had performed some brilliant exploits, a large part of its work was of the humdrum useful sort. "The extensive blockade," Lincoln wrote, "has been constantly increasing in efficiency as the navy has expanded; yet on so long a line it has so far been impossible to entirely suppress illicit trade. From returns received at the Navy Department, it appears that more than one thousand vessels have been captured since the blockade was instituted."3
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1 Congress passed an act to encourage immigration, approved July 4, 1864
2 Ante, p. 238.
3 He added: "The value of prizes already sent in for adjudication amounts to over thirteen millions of dollars. The naval force of the United States consists at this time of five hundred and eighty-eight vessels, completed and in the course of completion, and of these, seventy-five are ironclad or armored steamers. The events of the war give an increased interest and importance to the navy which will probably extend beyond the war itself. The armored vessels in our navy, completed and in service, or which are under contract and approaching completion, are believed to exceed in number those of any other power."

Towards the end of his message the President contrasted with effect the condition of things now and in December, 1862, and entered upon the consideration of his emancipation policy, where, so thoroughly did he understand the question, he was always at his best. "When Congress assembled a year ago," he said, "the war had already lasted nearly twenty months, and there had been many conflicts on both land and sea, with varying results. The rebellion had been pressed back into reduced limits; yet the tone of public feeling and opinion, at home and abroad, was not satisfactory. With other signs, the popular elections, then just past, indicated uneasiness among ourselves, while, amid much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores, and we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We had failed to elicit from European governments anything hopeful upon this subject. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued in September, was running its assigned period to the beginning of the new year. A month later the final proclamation came, including the announcement that colored men of suitable condition would be received into the war service. The policy of emancipation and of employing black soldiers gave to the future a new aspect, about which hope and fear and doubt contended in uncertain conflict. According to our political system, as a matter of civil administration, the General Government had no lawful power to effect emancipation in any State, and for a long time it had been hoped that the rebellion could be suppressed without resorting to it as a military measure. It was all the while deemed possible that the necessity for it might come, and that if it should, the crisis of the contest would then be presented. It came, and, as was anticipated, it was followed by dark and doubtful days. Eleven months having now passed, we are permitted to take another review. The rebel borders are pressed still further back, and, by the complete opening of the Mississippi, the country dominated by the rebellion is divided into distinct parts, with no practical communication between them. Tennessee and Arkansas have been substantially cleared of insurgent control, and influential citizens in each, owners of slaves and advocates of slavery at the beginning of the rebellion, now declare openly for emancipation in their respective States. Of those States not included in the Emancipation Proclamation, Maryland and Missouri, neither of which, three years ago, would tolerate any restraint upon the extension of slavery into new Territories, only dispute now as to the best mode of removing it within their own limits. . . .

No servile insurrection, or tendency to violence or cruelty, has marked the measures of emancipation and arming the blacks. These measures have been much discussed in foreign countries, and, contemporary with such discussion, the tone of public sentiment there is much improved. At home the same measures have been fully discussed, supported, criticised, and denounced, and the annual elections following are highly encouraging to those whose official duty it is to bear the country through this great trial. Thus we have the new reckoning. The crisis which threatened to divide the friends of the Union is past." He added: "I shall not attempt to retract or modify the Emancipation Proclamation; nor shall I return to slavery any person who is free by the terms of that proclamation, or by any of the acts of Congress."

The House of Representatives responding to the President by the voting down of certain resolutions and by the adoption of others, made it manifest that it would back him earnestly in a vigorous prosecution of the war. "Never since I have been in public life," wrote Sumner to Gladstone, January 1, 1864, "has there been so little excitement in Congress. The way seems, at last, open. Nobody doubts the result. The assurance of the future gives calmness."1 During the session the course of the Democrats, with the exception of a few individuals who had little following, calls for no censure. They made no factious opposition to the measures providing men and money for the war; they did not avail themselves of the tactics of obstruction; they were even taunted with a lack of stamina.2 The sentiment animating them was different from that with which they went to the country in the autumn of 1863. Most of them, indeed, were actuated by a spirit of patriotism, by love for the Union, and these now dictated the action of the party instead of the extreme men who had been discredited by the elections. "The war was never more popular than at this moment," wrote, November 14, John Sherman to his brother.3 In truth, such an opposition as had been made in the year 1863 could thrive only on military failure, while the people now had the buoyancy which proceeds from victory in war.

In a large country where nearly every man and woman has intelligence, information, and an opinion, it is frequently difficult, at the time great movements are making, to tell precisely what the sentiment is on any question that agitates the public mind. No ruler ever knew so well what the people thought as Lincoln; no one ever showed so wise a blending of leadership with susceptibility to the popular will. In the highest sense, it may be said, he followed, in order that he might lead. "I claim not to have controlled events," he wrote, "but confess, plainly, that events have controlled me."4 For the reason that Lincoln felt so keenly what the people were thinking about, I have considered that a better history
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1 Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv. p. 172.
2 New York Times, March 4, 1864.
3 Sherman Letters, p. 215.
4 April 4, 1864, Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 509.

of opinion could not be written than he has outlined in his December message, from which I have quoted at length. James Russell Lowell wrote for the North American Review of January, 1864, an estimate of public sentiment which is also remarkable in that the years have demonstrated its exactness. Nothing can so well reinforce the utterance of the backwoods lawyer in the White House as the words of the poet, the apostle of culture, who, from the groves of the academy, spoke in energetic diction for the mass of the common people of the North. "The progress of three years has outstripped the expectation of the most sanguine," he wrote, "and that of our arms, great as it undoubtedly is, is trifling in comparison with the advance of opinion. The great strength of slavery was a superstition which is fast losing its hold on the public mind. When it was first proposed to raise negro regiments, there were many even patriotic men who felt as the West-Saxons did at seeing their high-priest hurl his lance against the temple of their idol. They were sure something terrible, they knew not what, would follow. But the earth stood firm, the heavens gave no sign, and presently they joined in making a bonfire of their bugbear. That we should employ the material of the rebellion for its own destruction seems now the merest truism. In the same way men's minds are growing wonted to the thought of emancipation; and great as are the difficulties which must necessarily accompany and follow so vast a measure, we have no doubt that they will be successfully overcome. The point of interest and importance is, that the feeling of the country in regard to slavery is no whim of sentiment, but a settled conviction, and that the tendency of opinion is unmistakably and irrevocably in one direction, no less in the Border Slave States than in the Free. The chances of the war, which at one time seemed against us, are now greatly in our favor. The nation is more thoroughly united against any shameful or illusory peace than it ever was on any other question. . . . The Rebel leaders can make no concessions; the country is unanimously resolved that the war shall be prosecuted, at whatever cost. . . . While every day was bringing the people nearer to the conclusion which all thinking men saw to be inevitable from the beginning, it was wise in Mr. Lincoln to leave the shaping of his policy to events. In this country, where the rough and ready understanding of the people is sure, at last, to be the controlling power, a profound common-sense is the best genius for statesmanship. Hitherto the wisdom of the President's measures has been justified by the fact that they have always resulted in more firmly uniting public opinion. It is a curious comment on the sincerity of political professions, that the party calling itself Democratic should have been the last to recognize the real movement and tendency of the popular mind. The same gentlemen who two years ago were introducing resolutions in Congress against coercion, are introducing them now in favor of the war, but against subjugation. Next year they may be in favor of emancipation, but against abolition. It does not seem to have occurred to them that the one point of difference between a civil and a foreign war is, that in the former one of the parties must, by the very nature of the case, be put down, and the other left in possession of government. Unless the country is to be divided, no compromise is possible. ... If Mr. Lincoln continue to act with the firmness and prudence which have hitherto distinguished him, we think he has little to fear from the efforts of the opposition. Men without sincere convictions are hardly likely to have a well-defined and settled policy, and the blunders they have hitherto committed must make them cautious. If their personal hostility to the President be unabated, we may safely count on their leniency to the opinion of majorities, and the drift of public sentiment is too strong to be mistaken. They have at last discovered that there is such a thing as Country, which has a meaning for men's minds and a hold upon their hearts. ... In any event, an opposition is a wholesome thing; and we are only sorry that this is not a more wholesome opposition. We believe it is the general judgment of the country on the acts of the present administration, that they have been, in the main, judicious and well-timed. The only doubt about some of them seems to be as to their constitutionality." 1

In his annual report to the President, the Secretary of War said that the Conscription Act had been enforced in twelve States, levying fifty thousand soldiers,2 and raising by the three-hundred-dollar exemption ten millions for procuring substitutes. "Volunteering is going on, in some States, with much spirit," he said. "The prime importance of filling up the old regiments, and the superiority of such force over new regiments, is a point on which all military experience and opinions agree. . . . The indications are that the force required will, in a great measure, be raised by volunteering without draft. It is proper to add that commanding generals bear testimony that the drafted men who have gone into the ranks acquit themselves well and make good soldiers."

The Secretary spoke of the development of the national energy. "At the beginning of the war we were compelled to rely upon foreign countries for the supply of nearly all our arms and munitions. Now all these things are manufactured at home, and we are independent of foreign countries, not only for the manufactures, but also for the materials of which they are composed."

Congress took effective action towards filling the armies for the campaigns of 1864. By the Act of February 24 8 the President was authorized "whenever he shall deem it necessary during the present war to call for such number of men for the military service as the public exigencies may require," and
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1 Lincoln read this article, which occupies twenty-seven pages of the North American Review, and thus wrote of it, January 16,1864: "Of course, I am not the most impartial judge ; yet, with due allowance for this, I venture to hope that the article entitled 'The President's Policy' will be of value to the country. I fear I am not quite worthy of all which is therein kindly said of me personally." — Complete Works, vol. ii. p. 470.
2 Probably an over-statement. According to the report of the Provost-Marshal-General of March 17,1866, there were held to service 9881, furnished substitutes 26,002; total, 35,883.
3 1864.

provision was made for a draft in any division where the quota assigned was not filled by volunteers.

The Secretary of the Treasury began his report to Congress by saying that the operations of his department had "been attended during the last fiscal year by a greater measure of success than he ventured to anticipate at its beginning. . . . The Loan Act," he continued, "and the National Banking Act were followed by an immediate revival of public credit. Success quite beyond anticipation crowned the efforts of the Secretary to distribute the five-twenty loan in all parts of the country, as well as every other measure adopted by him for replenishing the Treasury." The receipts from customs, internal taxes, and other ordinary sources for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1863, were $111,000,000; the expenditures were $715,000,000; the difference, except $13,000,000 a balance from the preceding year, was provided by borrowing. The amount of the debt, July 1, 1863, was $1,099,000,000.! "To check the increase of debt," Chase wrote, "must be, in our circumstances, a prominent object of patriotic solicitude. The Secretary, therefore, while submitting estimates which require large loans, and while he thinks it not very difficult to negotiate them, feels himself bound, by a prudent regard to possible contingencies, to urge on Congress efficient measures for the increase of revenue." He recommended that internal taxes to the amount of one hundred and fifty millions yearly be imposed, and spoke of the "importance of an economical and vigorous prosecution of the war." He congratulated himself on the improvement of the public credit. "The first loans were negotiated at seven and thirty hundredths per cent.," he said; "the next at seven; the next at six; more recently large sums have been obtained at five and four" [these at 4 and 5 per cent. were "temporary loans by deposits reimbursable after ten days' notice "].2
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1 The exact figures are reduced to round numbers.
2 The reduction of interest was not so great as one might assume from Chase's report. The receipts from the first loans were in gold or paper payable in coin. After the suspension of specie payments December 28, 1861, and the enactment of the Legal-tender law of February 25, 1862, the receipts were in greenbacks or their equivalent (see vol. iii. p. 559 et seq.). The date of Chase's report was December 10, 1863. Gold sold that day at 148 ¾ , the value being measured in greenbacks.

Anticipating the chronological course of events, it will be convenient in this connection to touch upon the financial legislation of this session of Congress, which began December 7, 1863, and ended July 4, 1864. By two joint resolutions as a temporary expedient the rates of duties on imposts were increased fifty per cent., to take effect April 29, and to continue until July 1. A tariff act, being made up of the usual intricate mass of details, was passed, increasing materially the imposts.1 Another temporary measure was that of March 8, which levied a tax of sixty cents per gallon on spirits, thus augmenting this excise threefold. A comprehensive act of internal taxation, which repealed, except in some minor particulars, and superseded former acts, was passed, being approved June 30. Many of the duties were reimposed, some of them were increased. The tax on spirits was made $1.50 per gallon from July 1, 1864, to February 1, 1865, and after the later date it was to be $2; but the duty on malt liquors was not advanced. An income tax of five per cent, was imposed on incomes over $600 and less than $5000, of seven and one-half per cent. on amounts between $5000 and $10,000, and of ten per cent, on the excess over $10,000. The Secretary of the Treasury was authorized2 to borrow $400,000,000 by issuing six per cent. bonds, or in lieu of one-half of that amount he might sell $200,000,000 of interest-bearing legal-tender treasury notes. By the same section of this act the total amount of non-interest-bearing legal-tender notes, popularly known as greenbacks, issued or to be issued, was limited to $400,000,000, "and such additional sum, not exceeding fifty millions of dollars, as may be temporarily required for the redemption of temporary loan."3
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1 Approved June 30.
2 By act approved June 30.
3 The maximum amount outstanding was for 1864 . . . .$431,178,670
1865 ........ 432,687,966
1866 ….... 400,619,206
This last amount was not afterwards exceeded. — United States Notes, Knox, p. 142.

February 1 the President ordered a draft for 500,000 men, to be made March 10 if the several quotas were not filled by enlistment; but all of the troops who had been raised under the call of October 17, 1863, were deducted from this number, so that it was equivalent only to an additional call for 200,000.1 March 14, "in order to supply the force required to be drafted for the navy, and to provide an adequate reserve force for all contingencies," a supplementary call was made, and a draft ordered, under the usual conditions, for 200,000 men.2
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1 A call for three years' service. Under it 317,092 men were furnished, 52,288 paid commutation ; total, 369,380. In these figures, however, are embraced the men raised by draft in 1863. — Statistical Rec., Phisterer, p. 6.
2 Also, for three years. Men furnished, 259,515 ; men paid commutation, 32,678; total, 292,193. — Ibid. Of these, 3416 drafted men were held to personal service, 8911 drafted men furnished substitutes. — Report of Provost-Marshal-General, March 17,1866.

Although it will anticipate the chronological course of the narrative, it will be convenient to give here the results obtained from the two succeeding calls.

July 18,1864. Call for 500,000 men. Men furnished, 385,163. — Phisterer, p. 8.

The result of the draft was as follows:
Whole number drawn 231,918
Failed to report 66,159
Discharged, quota full . . . 26,416

"per order ... 807 93,382 138,536

Total number exempted . . 82,531 56,005
Held to personal service . . 26,205
Furnished substitutes . . . 28,502
Paid commutation 1,298 56,005
Report of Provost-Marshal-General, March 17, 1866, p. 199.

December 19,1864.
Call for 300,000 men.
Men furnished, 211,752. — Phisterer, p. 9.

The result of the draft was as follows:
Whole number drawn 139,024
Failed to report. ... 28,477
Discharged, quota full . . . 18,011
"per order . . . 46,408 92,896 Number examined . . 46,128
Total number exempted . . 28,631 17,497

Held to personal service . . 6,845
Furnished substitutes . . . 10,192
Paid commutation 460 17,497
Report of Provost-Marshal-General, p. 213.

The growing dislike of military service and the greater rewards at home for labor and business ability were constantly making it more difficult to get a sufficient number of the proper kind of men. Congress, the President, and the War Department did pretty well; perhaps as well as could be expected in a democracy where every man had an opinion and a vote, and at a time when the coming presidential election in the autumn could not be lost sight of; but the results fell far short of what would have been obtained had the Prussian system been possible. Nevertheless, the conscription went on with "few, if any, disturbances of the peace," "the people having learned to look upon the draft as a military necessity."1 The government, the States, the counties, and other political divisions were munificent in their offers of bounties, of which a salient example is seen in the advertisement of the New York County Volunteer Committee: "30,000 volunteers wanted. The following are the pecuniary inducements offered: County bounty, cash down, $300; State bounty, $75; United States bounty to new recruits, $302, additional to veteran soldiers, $100;"2 making totals, respectively, of $677 and $777 for service which would not exceed three years, was likely to be less, and turned out to be an active duty of little more than one year, besides the private soldier's pay of $16 3 per month with clothing and rations. The bounty in the county of New York was more than that generally paid throughout the country, although in some districts it was even higher.4 The system was bad, for it fostered a class of substitute brokers whose business was to get recruits, and whose aim was to earn their brokerage without any regard to the physical or moral quality of the men that they supplied.5 It brought into existence
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1 Report of Provost-Marshal-General, p. 147.
2 New York Times, Tribune, World, February 13.
3 After May 1, 1864.
4 Report of Provost-Marshal-General, p. 214. Of course the United States bounty of $300 or $400 was the same all over the country.
5 "The system of recruiting which has recently been followed in this city is one of the greatest scandals of the war. It has been one of organized pillage, resort being had to hocusing with narcotic poisons, threats, violence, false representations, and kidnapping in order to furnish victims to the bounty brokers and fill up the army with discontented and unfit men. Cripples, old men, mere boys, men laboring under incurable diseases and soldiers previously discharged for physical disability, form a great part of the recruits recently enlisted in this city." — New York Tribune, February 16. See also report of Assistant Provost-Marshal-General of Illinois, p. 28.

the crime of bounty-jumping. Thieves, pickpockets, and vagabonds would enlist, take whatever bounty was paid in cash, desert when opportunity offered, change their names, go to another district or State, re-enlist, collect another bounty, desert again, and go on playing the same trick until they were caught, or until such chances of gain were no longer available. The Provost-Marshal-General stated in his final report that "A man now in the Albany penitentiary, undergoing an imprisonment of four years, confessed to having ' jumped the bounty' thirty-two times."1 It was stated "that out of a detachment of 625 recruits sent to reinforce a New Hampshire regiment in the Army of the Potomac, 137 deserted on the passage, 82 to the enemy's picket line, and 36 to the rear, leaving but 370 men."2

The wide extent of country, the feverish anxiety in each town and municipal ward to fill its quota, together with a certain lack of administrative system, made it difficult to detect the bounty-jumpers. But the evil of this method was appreciated. "For a shrewd people," wrote General Sherman to his brother, April 11, "we have less sense even than the Mexicans, paying fabulous bounties for a parcel of boys and old men, and swelling our muster rolls, but adding nothing to our real fighting strength."3 The mischief promoted by substitute brokers and bounty-jumping was seen at its worst in the large cities of the East, where it brought into the ranks a number of criminals, bullies, and vagrants; and as these came to be guarded as prisoners, many of them reached
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1 P. 153 ; also Reminiscences, J. D. Cox, MS.
2 Appleton's Ann. Cyc., 1864, p. 37; see Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson, chap. i.
3 Sherman Letters, p. 227; see, also, p. 226.

the front.1 Yet not a large proportion of the recruits of 1864 were these social outcasts. In the country districts, villages, and smaller cities, the business ability of citizens who engaged voluntarily in the work of filling the respective quotas was brought to bear, with the result that attention was paid to the character of the men offering to serve;2 and while the enlisted men were inferior physically, morally, and intellectually, to those who had gone into the ranks in 1861 and 1862, and were in great part mercenaries, they were to a considerable extent made up of sturdy men from Canada, and brawny immigrants continually arriving from Europe, who were tempted by the high wage offered for military service. Although the rank and file were deteriorating, the process of weeding out political generals, and those appointed to the lower commands by influence rather than by merit, left their places open to the better officers, who had further improved by the lessons of experience. "I will see," wrote General Sherman to his brother, April 5, "that by May 1st I have on the Tennessee one of the best armies in the world."3 The result of his campaign bore full testimony to the truth of this prophecy. Best of all, the North had developed four great generals, Grant, Sherman, Thomas, and Sheridan, and in leaders was now superior to the South. In the death-grapple, as the story will tell, Grant was matched against Lee, Sherman against Joseph E. Johnston, who had succeeded Bragg; and, except Lee and Johnston, no one in the Confederacy showed the same ability in the command of an independent army as Thomas, and no one else proved the equal of Sheridan, whose peculiar prowess must have made Lee many times regret bitterly the loss of Stonewall Jackson.
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1 See Recollections of a Private Soldier, Wilkeson, chap. 1.
2 Even in New York City an improvement was noted by the Tribune of February 29: "Volunteering continues very brisk, Mr. Blunt having paid the bounty, on Saturday, to 265 men, most of whom were new recruits. The class of men now offering is very good, and many of them come from the interior of this, and from other States."
2 Sherman Letters, p. 226.

"In a military point of view, thank Heaven!" Motley wrote, "the ' coming man,' for whom we have so long been waiting, seems really to have come."1 Exactly so, thought the President, Congress, and the people. By an act of February 29, Congress revived the grade of Lieu tenant-General, and authorized the President to place the General, whom he should so appoint, in command of the armies of the United States under his direction and during his pleasure. It was understood on all sides that the man whom the nation's representatives desired to honor and upon whom they wished to devolve the burden of military affairs was Grant. This action fell in with the ideas of Lincoln. From the first he would have been glad to have some general on whom he could rely, on whom he could throw the responsibility of military operations. Scott failed him, on account of the infirmities of age; McClellan lacked the requisite ability; and Halleck, who was likewise deficient, shrunk from the burden after the disaster to Pope, and became merely the President's chief-of-staff.2 It was a welcome function for him to send to the Senate at once the nomination of Grant as Lieutenant-General. It was immediately confirmed.

Grant received orders from the department to report at Washington, and the day that he left Nashville to assume his new duties he wrote General Sherman a private letter, which brings into view the sublime friendship between these two soldiers, always marked by consideration and loyalty, and never to be alloyed with jealousy on the one side or envy on the other. Thus he wrote to his bosom companion-in-arms: "While I have been eminently successful in this war, in at least gaining the confidence of the public, no one feels more than I how much of this success is due to the energy, skill, and the harmonious putting forth of that energy and skill, of
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1 December 29, 1863, Letters, vol. ii. p. 146.
2 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 122; Horace Porter, CenturyMagazine, November 1896, p. 29; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 335; John Sherman in the Senate, February 24.

those whom it has been my good fortune to have occupying subordinate positions under me. There are many officers to whom these remarks are applicable to a greater or less degree, proportionate to their ability as soldiers; but what I want is to express my thanks to you and McPherson, as the men to whom, above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have had of success. How far your advice and suggestions have been of assistance, you know. How far your execution of whatever has been given you to do entitles you to the reward I am receiving, you cannot know as well as I do. I feel all the gratitude this letter would express, giving it the most flattering construction. The word you I use in the plural, intending it for McPherson also."1

Sherman replied: "You do yourself injustice and us too much honor in assigning to us so large a share of the merits which have led to your high advancement. . . . You are now Washington's legitimate successor, and occupy a position of almost dangerous elevation; but if you can continue, as heretofore, to be yourself, simple, honest, and unpretending, you will enjoy through life the respect and love of friends, and the homage of millions of human beings who will award to you a large share for securing to them and their descendants a government of law and stability. I repeat, you do General McPherson and myself too much honor. At Belmont you manifested your traits, neither of us being near; at Donelson also you illustrated your whole character. I was not near, and General McPherson in too subordinate a capacity to influence you. Until you had won Donelson, I confess I was almost cowed by the terrible array of anarchical elements that presented themselves at every point; but that victory admitted the ray of light which I have followed ever since. I believe you are as brave, patriotic, and just as the great prototype Washington; as unselfish, kind-hearted, and honest as a man should be; but the chief characteristic in your nature is the simple faith in success you have always manifested,
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1 March 4, Sherman Memoirs, vol. i. p. 399.

which I can liken to nothing else than the faith a Christian has in his Saviour. This faith gave you victory at Shiloh and Vicksburg. Also, when you have completed your best preparations, you go into battle without hesitation, as at Chattanooga — no doubts, no reserve; and I tell you that it was this that made us act with confidence. I knew wherever I was you thought of me, and if I got in a tight place you would come — if alive. My only points of doubt were as to your knowledge of grand strategy, and of books of science and history; but I confess your common-sense seems to have supplied all this. Now, as to the future. Do not stay in Washington. Halleck is better qualified than you are to stand the buffets of intrigue and policy. Come out West; take to yourself the whole Mississippi Valley; let us make it dead sure, and I tell you the Atlantic slope and Pacific shores will follow its destiny as sure as the limbs of a tree live or die with the main trunk! We have done much; still much remains to be done. Time and time's influences are all with us; we could almost afford to sit still and let these influences work. Even in the seceded States your word now would go further than a President's proclamation or an act of Congress. For God's sake, and for your country's sake, come out of Washington! I foretold to General Halleck before he left Corinth the inevitable result to him, and I now exhort you to come out West. Here lies the seat of the coming empire; and from the West, when our task is done, we will make short work of Charleston and Richmond, and the impoverished coast of the Atlantic."1

Arriving in Washington, Grant met Lincoln for the first time at a crowded reception at the White House.2 An appointment between the two was made for the next day,3 when, in the presence of the Cabinet, General Halleck, and a few others, the President said: "General Grant, the nation's
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1 Sherman Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 399, 400. a Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 340; H. Porter, Century Magazine, November 1896, p. 26.
3 March 9.

appreciation of what you have done, and its reliance upon you for what remains to do in the existing great struggle, are now presented, with this commission constituting you Lieutenant-General in the Army of the United States. With this high honor devolves upon you also a corresponding responsibility. As the country herein trusts you, so, under God, it will sustain you. I scarcely need to add that with what I here speak for the nation goes my own hearty personal concurrence."1

Grant replied: "Mr. President, I accept this commission with gratitude for the high honor conferred. With the aid of the noble armies that have fought on so many fields for our common country, it will be my earnest endeavor not to disappoint your expectations. I feel the full weight of the responsibilities now devolving on me; and I know that if they are met, it will be due to those armies, and, above all, to the favor of that Providence which leads both nations and men."2

The next day Grant was formally assigned to the command of the armies of the United States.3 Until his visit to Washington he had the intention of remaining in the West, but he now saw that his place was with the Army of the Potomac. He went to the front, and had a conference with Meade, at which, after an interchange of views creditable to both, he decided that Meade should retain his present command. He then went to Nashville, and discussed with Sherman, who succeeded him as chief of the Western army, the plan of operations in Tennessee and Georgia, returning, March 23, to Washington.4 He was now by all odds the most popular man in the United States.5 Both parties and all factions vied
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1 Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 341.
2 Ibid., p. 842.
3 March 10, O. R., vol. xxxiii. p. 663; Lincoln, Complete Works, vol. ii p. 494.
4 Grant's Personal Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 118; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. pp. 345, 346.
5 John Sherman, in a letter to his brother, March 26, gives an account of the homage paid Grant in Washington. "General Grant is all the rage. He is subjected to the disgusting but dangerous process of being lionized. He is followed by crowds, and is cheered everywhere. While he must despise the fickle fools who run after him, he, like most others, may be spoiled by this excess of flattery. He may be so elated as to forget the uncertain tenure upon which he holds and stakes his really well-earned laurels. . . . The opinion I form of him from his appearance is this, — his will and common-sense are the strongest features of his character. He is plain and modest, and so far bears himself well." — Letters, p. 224. General Sherman replied, April 5: "Grant is as good a leader as we can find. He has honesty, simplicity of character, singleness of purpose, and no hope or claim to usurp civil power. His character, more than his genius, will reconcile armies and attach the people. Let him alone. Don't disgust him by flattery or importunity. Let him alone. ... If bothered, hampered, or embarrassed, he would drop you all in disgust, and let you slide Into anarchy." — Ibid., p. 225.

with one another in his praise. He had met with obstacles in working up to the present position, which was the meed of his genius and character, and had suffered many hours of pain at the obloquy with which he had been pursued. But Vicksburg and Chattanooga were victories the cumulative force of which not only bore down all detraction, but raised the general who won them to a height of glory. It falls to few men of action to receive in their lifetime such plaudits, with hardly a murmur, with scarcely a grudge, as fell to the happy lot of Grant in the winter and early spring of 1864. His modest bearing and unaffected demeanor induced respect for his character, as his great deeds had won admiration for his military genius. Striking, indeed, is it to one who immerses himself in the writings of the time to contrast this almost universal applause of Grant with the abuse of Lincoln by the Democrats, the caustic criticism of him by some of the radical Republicans, the damning him with faint praise by others of the same faction.

Grant had the charm of simplicity of character, and in common with Lincoln he possessed the sentiment that he was one of the plain people, and would fain keep in touch with them. The two furnished, in this respect, a pattern for the great men of a democracy which is constituted of educated and moral persons. But he lacked the external manners, the aloofness of person, the quality of being niggard of his time, the dignity of bearing that should go with the commander of over half a million of soldiers1 to whom the nation looked for its salvation. Richard H. Dana, with that power of seeing things keenly, and describing them vividly, which he had exhibited in his early life in the story of "Two Years before the Mast," shows us Grant as he beheld him before he left finally for the field, when his mind was engrossed with the great plans of the campaign. Dana had arrived at Willard's Hotel, Washington, and had gone to the office to inquire for his luggage, when, as he tells the story, "a short, round-shouldered man, in a very tarnished major-general's uniform came up, and asked about his card for General Dana, which led me to look at him. There was nothing marked in his appearance. He had no gait, no station, no manner, rough, light-brown whiskers, a blue eye, and rather a scrubby look withal. A crowd formed round him; men looked, stared at him, as if they were taking his likeness, and two generals were introduced. Still, I could not get his name. It was not Hooker. Who could it be? He had a cigar in his mouth, and rather the look of a man who did, or once did, take a little too much to drink. I inquired of the bookkeeper. 'That is General Grant.' I joined the starers. I saw that the ordinary, scrubby-looking man, with a slightly seedy look, as if he was out of office and on half pay, and nothing to do but hang round the entry of Willard's, cigar in mouth, had a clear blue eye, and a look of resolution, as if he could not be trifled with, and an entire indifference to the crowd about him. Straight nose, too. Still, to see him talking and smoking in the lower entry of Willard's, in that crowd, in such times, — the generalissimo of our armies, on whom the destiny of the empire seemed to hang!" 2

The next morning Dana, having met Grant at breakfast, thus completes his account: "He was just leaving the table,
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1 I take the figures of Horace Porter, Century Magazine, November 1896, p. 31; see Phisterer, p. 62.
2 Private letter of April 21, Adams's Dana, vol. ii. p. 271.

and going to the front for the great movement. I said, 'I suppose, General, you don't mean to breakfast again until the war is over.' 'Not here, I sha'n't.' He gets over the ground queerly. He does not march, nor quite walk, hut pitches along as if the next step would bring him on his nose. But his face looks firm and hard, and his eye is clear and resolute, and he is certainly natural, and clear of all appearance of self-consciousness. How war, how all great crises, bring us to the one-man power! "1

I have now brought the story down to the last year of the war, and from this time onward I shall treat military affairs only in a general way. "It was not till after both Gettysburg and Vicksburg," wrote General Sherman, "that the war professionally began." 2 In 1864 and 1865 the campaigns and the battles were, as in the previous years, the events on which all else depended; but now that the President and generals had learned well the lessons of war, and began to conduct it with professional skill, there is a measure of justification for the writer who prefers henceforward to dwell upon the political and social side of the conflict to the dwarfing of the military picture.3

The details of Grant's plan need not concern us. The two salient features of it are simple and of the utmost importance; they were the destruction or capture of Lee's army by him
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1 Adams's Dana, vol. ii. p. 272.
2 W. T. Sherman wrote R. N. Scott, September 6, 1885: "I contend and have contended with European officers of world-wide fame that the military profession of America was not responsible for the loose preliminary operations of 1862, and that it was not till after both Gettysburg and Vicksburg that the war professionally began. Then our men had learned in the dearest school of earth the simple lesson of war. Then we had brigades, divisions, and corps which could be handled professionally, and it was then that we as professional soldiers could rightfully be held to a just responsibility." — NorthAmerican Review, March, 1886, p. 302.
3 The large number of excellent works on the war by military critics is well known. Ropes's Story of the Civil War, which by the publication of part ii. in 1899 is brought to the close of 1862, is concise, and will be found interesting by the general reader.

self and his force of 122,000 men, and the crushing of Joseph E. Johnston by Sherman with his army of 100,000.1 From the nature of the situation a second objective point in the one case was Richmond, in the other, Atlanta. The winter and early spring had been spent largely in systematic and effective preparation. The confidence of the people in Grant was so great that many were sanguine that the war would be over by midsummer.2

On the night of May 3 the Army of the Potomac began its advance by crossing the Rapidan without molestation, and encamping the next day in the Wilderness, where one year before Hooker had come to grief. Grant had no desire to fight a battle in this tangled jungle; but Lee, who had watched him intently, permitted him to traverse the river unopposed, thinking that, when he halted in the dense thicket, every inch of which was known to the Confederate general and soldiers, the Lord had delivered him into their hands. Lee ordered at once the concentration of his army, and with Napoleonic swiftness marched forward to dispute the advance of his enemy. May 5 the forces came together in the Wilderness, and a hot battle raged. The Confederates were in number only half of the Union troops,3 but the difficulties of the battle-ground which their leader had chosen, their better topographical knowledge, the circumstance that the superior Federal artillery could be little used made it an equal contest, neither side gaining the advantage.

Grant perceived that he must fight his way through the Wilderness, and prepared to take the offensive the next day; but Lee had likewise determined on attack Both desiring the initiative, the battle was on at an early hour. It
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1 For the size of the armies, see Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 352, vol. ix. p. 2. 2 See New York Tribune, March 16, 18, World, March 29, Independent, February 18, and letter of H. Greeley, ibid., February 25; Life of Seward, vol. iii. p. 209; Gray's Letters, vol. ii. p. 517; Greeley's Amer. Conflict, vol. ii. p. 654.
3 The Virginia Campaign of '64 and '65, Humphreys, p. 17; Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 352.

progressed with varying fortune, each force gaining successes at different moments, and at different parts of the line. At one time the Confederate right wing was driven back, and disaster seemed imminent, when Longstreet came up and saved the day. A Texas brigade of Longstreet's corps went forward to the charge, and Lee, who like his exemplar Washington was an eager warrior, and loved the noise and excitement of battle, spurred onward his horse, and, intensely anxious for the result, started to follow the Texans as they advanced in regular order. He was recognized, and from the entire line came the cry, "Go back, General Lee! go back!"1 This movement of the Confederates was stopped by the wounding of Longstreet by a shot from his own men, an accident similar to that by which Stonewall Jackson one year before had received his mortal hurt.2

The fighting of these two days is called the Battle of the Wilderness. Both generals claimed the advantage; both were disappointed in the result. Grant, who had expected that the passage of the Rapidan and the turning of the right of the Confederates would compel them to fall back, had hoped to march through the Wilderness unopposed, fight them in more open country, and inflict upon them a heavy blow. Lee, in no way daunted because Grant had taken command in person of the Army of the Potomac, thought, undoubtedly, that his victories in the West had been due more to the lack of skill of his opponents than to able generalship, and had hoped to beat Grant as he had beaten McClellan, Pope, Burnside, and Hooker, drive him back across the Rapidan, and constrain him, like his predecessors, to abandon his campaign. Measured by casualties, the Confederates came the nearer to victory. The Union loss was 17,666;3 that of the Confederates was certainly less, although an accurate report of it is lacking.
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1 Life of Lee, Long, p. 330; do. Fitzhugh Lee, p. 331; Taylor's Four Years, p. 127.
2 Longstreet was not able to resume active duty until October. — From Manassas to Appomattox, p. 574.
3 Century War Book, vol. iv. p. 182.

It is stated as half, and, again, as nearly two-thirds of that of the Federals.1 The Army of the Potomac had the death of the brave General Wadsworth to deplore.

May 7 neither general showed a disposition to attack. Grant decided to continue the movement by the left, and march by night to Spotsylvania Court House. His army started without knowing whether or not it had been beaten, but aware of the great slaughter; and when they came to the parting of the ways, the question in all minds arose, would the orders be to turn northward and recross the river? The columns filed to the right, the faces of the men were set towards Richmond, and Grant, in their estimation, was exalted. The soldiers sang and stepped forward with elastic tread. "The spirits of men and officers are of the highest pitch of animation," was the word which Dana sent Stanton.2 Grant rode by, and in spite of the darkness was recognized. The men burst out into cheers, swung their hats, clapped their hands, threw up their arms, and greeted their general as a comrade. They were glad that he was leading them onward to Richmond instead of ordering them to fall back to the camp which they had just abandoned.3
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1 Fitzhugh Lee, p. 332; Humphreys, p. 64.
2 O. R., vol. xxxvi. part i. p. 64.
3 Nicolay and Hay, vol. viii. p. 372; Horace Porter, Century Magazine, January 1897, p. 347; Wilkeson, Recollections of a Private, p. 80; Grant's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 210.


Source: Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States; from the compromise of 1850 to the final restoration of home rule at the south in 1877, v.4. New York: Macmillan, 1910 [c1892].