ings, and committed all sorts of outrages upon persons and property. Before leaving Charlotte, Davis made a speech, in which he had the audacity to declare that he would very soon have a larger army in the field than ever before.

On the 28th, Davis left Yorkville, South Carolina. General Stoneman was in such hot pursuit, that he entered the place with his cavalry the next day. The fugitive rebel leader was now goaded to his utmost speed. His troops spurred their horses across the northern part of South Carolina, crossing the Savannah River a little above Augusta, and reached Washington, in Georgia, about forty miles northwest of Augusta, on the 4th of May. General Stoneman was close upon his heels. General Wilson was at Macon, in the centre of the State, with an ample cavalry force. He had deployed his troops in various directions to head off the flight of the fugitive. On the night of the 5th of May, Davis had reached Powellton, about half-way between Washington and Milledgeville. His escape now seemed hopeless; in whatever direction he turned he beheld his pursuers before him.

By circuitous and unfrequented roads, he succeeded, by the 9th of May, in reaching Irwinsville, in Wilkinson County, Georgia, about thirty-five miles on the railroad east of Macon, where General Wilson's head-quarters were established. Lieutenant-Colonel Pritchard, commanding the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, of Wilson's Cavalry Corps, following closely in the trail of the fugitives, reached Irwinsville at midnight of the 9th. There he learned from a citizen that Davis was encamped two miles out of town. He immediately disposed his force, consisting of but one hundred and fifty picked men, in such a way as to render escape impossible.

Colonel Harden, of the First Wisconsin Cavalry, had struck Davis's path of flight at Dublin, Lawrence County, on the evening of the 7th. Harden pushed down the Ocmulgee towards Hopewell, and pressing along night and day, through the pine wilderness of Alligator Creek and Green Swamp, reached Irwinsville by the way of Cumberland, and encamped at nine o'clock, on the night of the ninth, within two miles, as he afterwards learned, of the encampment of Davis. At three o'clock the next morning he again pressed forward in pursuit, and had moved but about a mile when, in the darkness, his advance was fired upon by the Fourth Michigan Cavalry, of Colonel Pritchard's command. Quite a spirited contest for fifteen minutes ensued, when the mistake was discovered, but not until two men were killed and five wounded.

This report of musketry was the first intimation that Davis and his captors received of the vicinity of the Union troops. The unhappy man had his family with him. Their consternation and anguish probably unmanned him. Instead of meeting his fate with dignity, he exposed him self to universal derision by endeavoring to escape in the garb of a woman His boots revealed him, and he was pursued and brought to bay. It is said that for a moment he brandished a bowie-knife, but that the presentation of a revolver subdued him. Before his capture, his party had dispersed, and Benjamin, Breckinridge, and Trenholm were endeavoring to escape by another route.

Never before was there so sudden and so terrible a downfall. But six weeks had elapsed, since Jefferson Davis nominally held sway over a realm extending fifteen hundred miles in the southwest, from the James River to the Rio Grande, and in the southeast, from the Alleghanies to the Capes of Florida. Four large armies were under his control. His dominions were sufficiently spacious to carve from them many kingdoms. Now, his armies were annihilated. His generals were paroled prisoners; his possessions stripped from him; his capital captured, and his cabinet dispersed. He, a wretched culprit, flying for his life, had been caught in the dress of a woman, thus draining to the dregs the cup of humiliation. General Wilson, in his terse dispatch, says of Davis: "He expressed great indignation at the energy with which he was pursued, and said that he believed our Government was too magnanimous to hunt down women and children.""

The rebel chieftain was conveyed to Macon on the 14th. He was then sent, under guard, by way of Augusta, to Savannah. At Savannah, Jefferson Davis, with his wife and four children, with several other captured rebels of note, was conveyed by the steamer W. P. Clyde to Fortress Monroe. He was there placed in solitary confinement in one of the casemates, there to await his trial, when the Government should find time to attend to his case.

The war was now ended. The reader would take but little interest in the record of the dispersion or the surrender of the scattered bands. In many cases, the soldiers took the law into their own hands, and, defiant of any control, in thieving groups, started for their homes. General E. Kirby Smith, who had been in command of quite a formidable force in Texas, found his soldiers thus rapidly vanishing, leaving his camp empty. Carrying out legitimately the doctrine of secession, they threw themselves upon their individual rights, and, asserting the prerogatives of individ ual sovereignty, seceded from their colors and their commanders. In a final address to the few who remained, Smith said:

"Soldiers! I am left a commander without an army; a general without troops."

He gave them, however, the following good advice: "Your present duty is plain. Return to your families. Resume the occupations of peace. Yield obedience to the laws. Labor to restore order. Strive by both counsel and example to give security to both life and property. And may God, in his mercy, direct you aright, and heal the wounds of our distracted country."

And now the Government commenced very vigorously disbanding the army and the navy, and dismissing to their peaceful homes those citizens who by hundreds of thousands had so gloriously listened to the call of their imperilled country, and had hastened from their farms and their firesides to the field of battle. In less than three months more than

seven hundred thousand were mustered out of service. With scarcely an exception, they returned to their homes and resumed the ennobling pursuits of civil life. At the date of Lee's surrender, the United States Government had upon its army roll nearly a million of men. One hardly

knows which most to admire the alacrity with which these noble men rushed to the field of battle, or the quietude with which they laid aside their arms, and, conscious of the noble deeds they had so nobly performed, returned to their friends and their homes.

After the gale has abated the waves still roll. The work of reconstruction was necessarily slow. Of its final and triumphant success no intelligent man could doubt. The crushing of the rebellion placed our country in the first ranks, as a power, among the nations of the globe. Our flag waved with new lustre. Our Union was consolidated, for no one feared that rebellion would ever again venture to raise its banner. The following considerations satisfied the community that the national debt could very easily be borne: The individual property of the nation was amply sufficient to pay it many times over; and the public property of the nation, consisting of fertile land and mines of gold and silver, was, at the lowest calculation, five times more than the national debt. Consequently there were no securities so eagerly sought as the public funds.

It is obvious to all that God has opened before us a career such as no other nation has yet entered upon. He has given us a whole continent to ourselves. He has forbidden any dividing lines. The range of our mountains, the flow of our rivers, the necessities of our National life indicate that the Divine Architect will tolerate here but one nation, one flag, one brotherhood. All causes now combine to promote the grandeur of this imperial republic. This dreadful war has removed the only obstacle which has interfered with our harmony and our greatness. Our Government is wonderfully adapted for expansion. We are one nation in every thing which involves national questions, while each State is sovereign and independent in all that is local in its legislation.

CHAPTER XLVII.

RESULTS OF THE CONFLICT.

EFFECT OF DISASTERS AT BULL RUN.-EXCITEMENT RESPECTING SLAVERY.-NEW LAWS IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.-PROCLAMATION OF GENERAL DAVID HUNTER.-SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.-RESOLVES OF THE THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.-HON. EDWARD M. STANTON.-COLONEL ROBERT G. SHAW.-ACT OF EMANCIPATION.-LETTER OF HON. CHARLES SUMNER.-DUTIES OF THE AMERICAN CITIZEN.

Soon after the assembling of Congress, upon the breaking out of the slaveholders' rebellion, as it was manifest that slavery was the cause and the support and the motive power of the rebellion, an effort was made to confiscate the property and emancipate the slaves of all rebel masters. Incredible as it may seem, at that hour, sympathy with slavery was so strong, and the desire to conciliate the Border Slave States, who were so bitterly opposed to the measure, was so potent, that the resolve could not be passed. The slaves continued, through their enforced labor, to feed the armies of rebellion and dig the trenches and repair the fortifications before which Northern patriots were profusely shedding their blood. It was not until God laid upon us the Egyptian plague of the disastrous battle of Bull Run, that the nation could be persuaded to let even the slaves of traitors in arms go free. The traitor, John C. Breckinridge, of Kentucky, who still lingered in the halls of Congress that he might thwart all endeavors to crush the rebellion, denounced this movement as "the first of a series of acts loosing all bonds." This bill was passed on the 3d of August, 1861. The carnage of Bull Run, which had occurred but three weeks before, pushed it through. But even that plague of blood and woe could only secure the emancipation of such slaves as had been employed by their traitorous masters "upon any fort, navy-yard, dock, armory, ship, intrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatsoever, against the government and lawful authority of the United States." The slaves

who by millions were working in the field, under the lash, to feed these armies, were still to remain in bondage.

As the rebellion developed increasingly gigantic proportions, and it was manifest that the country was engaged in a death-grapple with its foes, General John C. Fremont issued, in Missouri, a proclamation which was hailed with enthusiasm by all the loyal masses of the North, but which roused to intense indignation the pro-slavery party in the Border States. In this proclamation, issued on the 30th of August, 1861, General Fremont said:

"Real and personal property of those who shall take up arms against.

the United States, or who shall be directly proven to have takenʼan active part with their enemies in the field, is declared confiscated to public use, and their slaves, if any they have, are hereby declared freemen.

It is difficult to imagine the uproar which the sentence we have italicized created among the pro-slavery men in the North and in the Border States. General Fremont was denounced in the most vehement terms, and his dismissal from command clamorously called for. President Lincoln was alarmed. He wrote to General Fremont, requesting him to modify his proclamation so that it should embrace only those slaves who had been employed by their masters in actual military service. General Fremont replied, as has been stated in the first volume, in words which will forever redound to his honor:

"If your better judgment decides that I was wrong in the article respecting the liberation of slaves, I have to ask that you will openly direct me to make the correction. The implied censure will be received as a soldier always should receive the reprimand of his chief. If I were to retract of my own accord, it would imply that I myself thought it wrong, and that I had acted without the reflection which the gravity of the point demanded. But I did not.”

To this the President replied, with his characteristic frankness, under the date of September 11th: "Your answer, just received, expresses the preference on your part, that I should make an open order for the modification, which I very cheerfully do. It is therefore ordered, that the said clause of said proclamation be so modified, held, and construed as to conform with and not to transcend the provisions on the same subject, contained in the act of Congress entitled 'An Act to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes.

On the 25th of January, 1862, Secretary Seward, in accordance with the rapidly growing demand of public sentiment, issued an order from the President, forbidding the Marshal of the District of Columbia from receiving into custody "any persons claimed to be held to service or labor, and not charged with any crime, unless upon arrest or commitment, pursuant to law, as fugitives from such service or labor." Even this so slight recognition of the rights of the colored men excited the most violent opposition. But the tide of freedom was now slowly, yet surely, rising, and nothing could stay its progress.

In March, Congress adopted a recommendation of the President, offering "to cooperate with any State which may adopt a gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system."

Eagle-eyed slavery was again alarmed, and petitions from Kentucky were sent to the United States Senate, entreating Congress "to disregard all schemes for emancipation.

At the same time both halls of Congress were flooded with petitions for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, which was under the exclusive legislation of Congress. The advocates of slavery were equally active. Even from the Free State of Illinois, whose southern