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1864.]

BATTLE OF CEDAR CREEK.

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deployed some cavalry to stop them, and inspired his men with a short and oft-repeated oration, which is reported as " Face the other way, boys! We are going back to our camps! We are going to lick them out of their boots!" This actually turned the tide, a new line was quickly formed and intrenched, and when Early attacked it he met with a costly repulse. In the afternoon Sheridan advanced to attack in turn, sending his irresistible cavalry around both flanks, and after some fighting the whole Confederate line was broken up and driven in confusion, with the cavalry close upon its heels. All the guns lost in the morning were retaken, and twenty-four besides. In this double battle the Confederate loss was about thirty-one hundred; the National, fiftyseven hundred and sixty-four, of whom seventeen hundred were prisoners taken in the morning and hurried away toward Richmond. The campaign in the valley was now practically ended.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

THE length of time that the war had continued, the drain upon the resources of both belligerents, and especially the rapidity and destructiveness of the battles in the summer of 1864, had naturally suggested the question whether there were not some possibility of a satisfactory peace without further fighting. In each section there was a party, or at least there were people, who believed that such a peace was possible, and the loud expression of this opinion led to several efforts at negotiation, as it also shaped the policy of a great political party. In July Colonel James F. Jacques, of the 73d Illinois regiment, accompanied by James R. Gilmore (known in literature, by his delineations of Southern life just before the war, under the pen-name of "Edmund Kirke"), went to Richmond under flag of truce, where they were admitted to a long interview with the chief officers of the Confederate Government. They had They had gone with Mr. Lincoln's informal sanction, but had no definite terms to offer; and if they had, Mr. Davis's remarks show that it would have been in vain. At the close he said: "Say to Mr. Lincoln, from me, that I shall at any time be pleased to receive proposals for peace on the basis of our

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THE FREMONT CONVENTION.

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independence. It will be useless to approach me with any other." In that same month of July, three Southerners of some note created a great sensation by a conference at Niagara Falls, with Horace Greeley, on the subject of peace; but the affair came to nothing.

The first. Presidential convention of the year met at Cleveland, Ohio, on the last day of May, in response to a call addressed "to the radical men of the nation." The platform declared, among other things, "that the rebellion must be suppressed by force of arms, and without compromise; that the rebellion has destroyed slavery, and the federal Constitution should be amended to prohibit its reëstablishment; that the question of the reconstruction of the rebellious States belongs to the people, through their representatives in Congress, and not to the Executive; and that confiscation of the lands of the rebels, and their distribution among the soldiers and actual settlers, is a measure of justice." General John C. Frémont was nominated for the Presidency, and General John Cochrane for the Vice-Presidency. Though this was the least of the conventions, yet in all the points here quoted from its platform, with the exception of the last, it indicated the policy that was ultimately pursued by the nation; and it is a singular fact that the exceptional plank (confiscation) was objected to by both candidates in their letters of acceptance.

The Republican National Convention met in Baltimore on the 7th of June. It dropped the

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THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM.

[1864.

word "Republican" for the time being, and simply called itself a Union Convention, to accommodate the war Democrats, who were now acting with the Republican party. Not only the free States were represented, but some that had been claimed by the Confederacy and had been partially or wholly recovered from it, including Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas. The platform, reported by Henry J. Raymond, one of the ablest of American journalists, was probably written largely if not entirely by him. Its most significant passages were these:

"That we approve the determination of the Government of the United States not to compromise with the rebels, nor to offer them any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return to their full allegiance to the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

"That as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic.

We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States.

"That we approve and applaud the practical wisdom, the unselfish patriotism, and unswerving

1864.]

RE-NOMINATION OF LINCOLN.

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fidelity to the Constitution and the principles of American liberty, with which Abraham Lincoln. has discharged, under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty, the great duties and responsibilities of the Presidential office; that we approve and indorse, as demanded by the emergency and essential to the preservation of the nation, and as within the Constitution, the measures and acts which he has adopted to defend the nation against its open and secret foes; that we approve especially the Proclamation of Emancipation, and the employment as Union soldiers of men heretofore held in slavery.

"That the National faith, pledged for the redemption of the public debt, must be kept inviolate; that it is the duty of every loyal State to sustain the credit and promote the use of the National currency."

On the first ballot all the delegations voted for Mr. Lincoln, except that from Missouri, whose vote was given to General Grant. According to the official report of the proceedings, the first ballot for a candidate for Vice-President resulted in two hundred votes for Andrew Johnson, one hundred and eight for Daniel S. Dickinson (a war Democrat), one hundred and fifty for Hannibal Hamlin (who then held the office), and fifty-nine scattering; several delegations changed their votes to Johnson, and he was almost unanimously nominated. But according to the testimony of one who was on the floor as a delegate, the nomination of Mr. Lincoln was immediately followed by an

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