Abraham Lincoln / The People's Leader in the Struggle for National Existence

e line of advance for Confederate invaders through the Shenandoah must be blocked. General Sheridan was placed in charge of the army of the

On the 19th of October, the persistent old fighter Early, not willing to acknowledge himself beaten and understanding that he had to do with an army that for the moment did not have the advantage of Sheridan's leadership, made his plucky, and for the time successful, fight at Cedar Creek. The arrival of Sheridan at the critical hour in the afternoon of the 19th of October did not, as has sometimes been stated, check the retreat of a demoralised army. Sheridan found his army driven back, to be sure, from its first position, but in occupation of a well supported line across the pike from which had just been thrown back the last attack

lanking movements against Joe Johnston, the Fabius of the Confederacy, and when Johnston had been replaced by the headstrong Hood, had promptly taken advantage of Hood's rashness to shatter the orga

. His advance did some desperate fighting at the battle of Franklin and succeeded in driving back the rear-guard of Thomas's army, ably commanded by General Schofield, but the Confederate ranks were so seriously shattered that when they took position in front of Nashville they no longer had adequate strength to make the siege of the

ade time to write the letter to Mrs. Bixby whose name comes into histo

ny words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray

oners, it involved also expense. It was, however, on every ground desirable that the men who were risking their lives in defence of the nation should be given the opportunity of taking part in the selection of the nation's leader, who was also under the Constitution the commander-in-chief of the armies in the field. The votes of some four hundred thousand men constituted also an

on, whenever his suggestions or conclusions met with opposition. These threats had been received with patience up to the point when patience seemed to be no longer a virtue; b

al requirements of the task. Mr. Chase did possess the confidence of the more extreme of the anti-slavery groups throughout the country. His administration of the Treasury had been able and valuable, but the increasing difficulty that had been found in keeping the Secretary of the Treasury in harmonious relations with the other members of the administration caused his retirement to be on the whole a relief. Lincoln came to the conclusion that more effective service could be secured from some other man, even if possessing less ability, whose temperament made it possible for him to work in co-operation. The unexpected accept

and he felt assured that if the Southern Confederacy should finally be established with the friendly co-operation of France, he would be left unmolested to carry out his own schemes in Mexico. He had induced an honest-minded but not very clearheaded Prince, Maximilian, the brother of the Emperor of Austria, to accept a throne in Mexico to be established by French bayonets, and which, as the result showed, could sustain itself only while those bayonets were a

sidency. Lincoln remarks in connection with this candidacy: "If Chase becomes President, all right. I hope we may never have a worse man." From the more conservative wing of the Republican party came suggestions as to the nomination of Grant and this plan brought from Lincoln the remark: "If Grant takes Richmo

in nearly all of the voting States constituted not only a cordial recognition of the service that was being rendered by Lincoln and by Lincoln's administration, but a substantial assu

operly, that all of the nation's soldiers must be treated alike and must be protected by a uniform policy. Until the coloured troops should be included in the exchange, "there can," said Lincoln, "be no exchanging of prisoners." This decision, while sound, just, and necessary, brought, naturally, a good deal of dissatisfaction to the men in prison and to their friends at home. When I reached Libby in October, I found there men who had been prisoners for six or seven months and who (as far as they lived to get out) were to be prisoners for five months more. Through the winter of 1864-65, the illness and mortality in the Virginia prisons of Libby and Danville were very severe. It was in fact a stupid b

assured spirit of loyalty. When the vote for President came to be counted, we found that we had elected Lincoln by more than three to one. The soldiers felt that Lincoln was the man behind the guns. The prison votes, naturally enough, reached no ballot boxes and my individu

g action between men differing from each other as widely as did Chase, Stanton, Blair, and Seward, in temperament, in judgment, and in honest convictions as to the proper policy for the nation, was an attempt that brought upon the chief daily burdens and many keen anxieties. Lincoln insisted, however, that it was all-important for the proper carrying on of the contest that the Cabinet should contain representatives of the several loyal sections of the country and of the various phases of opinion. The extreme anti-slavery men were entitled to be heard even though their spokesman Chase was often intemperate, ill-judged, bitter, and unfair. The Border States men had a right to be represented and it was all-essential that they should feel that they had a part in the War government even though their spokesman Blair might show himself, as he of

vinced himself that the Confederacy could not conquer its independence and that it only remained to secure the best terms possible for a surrender. On the other hand, Jefferson Davis was not yet prepared to consider any terms short of a recognition of the independence of the Confederacy, and Stephens could act only under the instructions received from Ric

n," said Stephens, "King Charles of E

ve historical details to Mr. Seward, who is a student. It

e hardly familiar to some of the older citizens of the South, the men who had accepted the responsibility for the rebellion. The state of mind of these older Southerners in regard more particularly to the resources of the North-west was recalled to me years after the War by an incident related by General Sherman at a dinner of the New England Society. Sherman said that during the march through Georgia he had found himself one day at noon, when near the head of his column,

eans over the piazza, and calls to the standard bearers, "Throw out your flag, bo

planter, "Wisconsin?

tates of the North-

"I knew of Wisconsin simply as the name of a trib

thousand when they s

t there is a State called Wisconsin that has

rty thousand," a

eated. The flag was that of a Minnesota regiment, say the 32d

sed that these great States of the North-west were vitally concerned with the necessity of keeping the Mississippi open for their trade from its source to the Gulf of Mexico. They might have known that those States, largely settled from New England, were absolutely opposed to slavery. This knowledge was within their reach but they had not realised the facts of the case. It was their feeling that in the coming contest they would have to do only with New England and the Middle States and they felt that they were strong enough to hold their own against this group of opponents. That feeling would have been justified. The South could never have been overcome and the existence of th

es. The profits on a single voyage on the cotton taken out and on the stores brought back were sufficient to make good the loss of both vessel and cargo in three disastrous trips. The blockade-runners, Southerners and Englishmen, took their lives in their hands and they fairly earned all the returns that came to them. I happened to have early experience of the result of the fall of Fort Fisher and of the final closing of the last inlet for British goods. I was at the time in prison in Danville, Virginia. I was one of the few men in the prison (the group comprised about a dozen) who had been fortunate enough to retain a tooth-brush. We wore our tooth-brushes fastened into the front button-holes of our blouses, partly pos

nians were not more annoyed at the lack of attention paid by Sherman to the fire-eating little city in which four years back had been fired the gun that opened the War, than they would have been by an immediate and strenuous occupation. Sherman had more important

e emphasis is placed on the all-important task of bringing the enmities to a close with the end of the actual fighting. He points out that responsibilities rest upon the North as well as upon the South and he invokes from those who under his leadership are bringing the contest to a tr

do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it should continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsmen in two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid for by another drop of blood drawn by the War, as was said two thousand years ago so still it must be said, that the judgments

his last inaugural is based upon the understanding that there is again a common country and that in caring for those who have been

the engineers and by the patient courage of the troops, had been magnificent. It must always take a high rank in the history of war operations. The skilful use made of positions of natural strength, the high skill shown in the construction of works to meet first one emergency and then another, the economic distribution of constantly diminishing resources, the clever disposition of forces, (which during the last year were being steadily reduced from month to month), in such fashion that at the point of probable contact there seemed to be always men enough to make good the defence, these thing

h Carolina) had felt justified, for the purpose of destroying such army stores (chiefly ammunition) as remained, in setting fire to the storehouses, and in so doing he had left whole quarters of the city exposed to flame. White stragglers and negroes who had been slaves had, as would always be the case where all authority is removed, yielded to the temptation to plunder, and the city was full of drunken and irresponsible men. The coloured troops restored order and appear to have behaved with perfect discipline and consideration. The

ic and storytelling records in the shape of pictures of events, made a drawing which was purchased later by the New York Union League Club, showing Lincoln on his way through Main Street, with the coloured folks of the town and of the surrounding country crowding about the man whom they hailed as their deliverer, and in their enthusiastic adoration trying to touch so much as the hem of his garment. The picture is history in showing what actually happened and it is pathetic history in recalling how great were the hopes that came to the coloured people from the success of the North and from the certainty of the end of slave

g the entrenchments at Petersburg. As soon as it became evident that the army was not going to be able to break through the Federal lines and begin a fresh campaign in North Carolina, the men scattered from the retreating columns right and left, in many cases carrying their muskets to their own homes as a memorial fairly earned

Grant, who never gave much thought to his personal appearance, had for days been away from his baggage train, and under the urgency of keeping as near as possible to the front line with reference to the probability of being called to arrange terms for surrender, he had not found the opportunity of securing a proper coat in place of his fatigue blouse. I believe that even his sword had been mislaid, but he was able to borrow one for the occasion from a staff officer. When the main details of the surrender had been talked over, Grant looked about

be now at such a point," naming a village eight or nine miles to the south-west. General Sheridan, with a twinkle in his eye, now put in a word: "The train from the south is there, General Lee, or at least it was there yesterday. My men captured it and the rations will be available." General Lee turns, mounts his old horse Traveller, a valued comrade, and rides slowly through the ranks first of the blue and then of the grey. Every hat c