415

cates - was can not consecrate we can prots hallow thes ground. The brave mew, lis ing and dead, who struggles her have tons secrated to, for above our poor power to adds or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we pay here; but it can

Dnever forget

•forget what they dis here. It is for as the living, nother, to be desticated here to the unfinished work which they who four gho her have thus far so nobly advanced, To is rather for us to be here dedication to

the

great task remaining before us,_ that from these honores dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the fast full measure of devotion that here highly resolve that these dead shall now have drew on vain that this nation, under God, God, shall have a new birth of frees prom and that

goverment of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not pers ish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln.

November

19.

1863.

CHAPTER L.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

Keeping Good Workmen-Absence of Favoritism-A Political Revolution -A National Prayer-Meeting-The Coming General-Helpless intrigues.

It would be fair to describe Mr. Lincoln's management of the long list of military commanders under his direction as a persistent effort by him to put each man, as nearly as might be, in the place for which he was best fitted and wherein he could perform the most effective service.

If, having appointed any man to an especial duty, he found him insufficient for it, he was quite willing to transfer him to another. If a strong man's usefulness were impaired or destroyed by local or transitory causes, no undue or continuing weight was ever assigned to these.

Fine illustrations of this rare element in the President's capacity as a ruler are furnished by the records of Generals Burnside and Hooker, after each in turn had ceased to command the Army of the Potomac. Neither Fredericksburg nor Chancellorsville was permitted to deprive the country of valuable services. There was no sort of quarrel between either of them and the Commander-in-Chief, and they went on, in new fields and with other armies, to prove the soundness of his judgment concerning them.

The watchfulness required for the exercise of such a judgment was all but sleepless, and called for the constant study of circumstances as well as of men and of apparent results. Mr. Lincoln's hours of hard-won solitude were a perpetual "court of inquiry." He followed every movement of every army

with the map before him, yet never permitted himself to make the error of meddling with the decision of a competent general in the field. He himself, unintentionally but accurately, sets forth his methods of study and control, in his letter of congratulation to General Grant after the Vicksburg triumph. It is dated July 13, 1863.

"MY DEAR GENERAL: I do not remember that you and I have ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I write to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg, I thought you should do what you finally did,-march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I that the Yazoo Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below and took Port Gibson,. Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join General Banks, and when you turned northward,, east of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I wish, now, to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right and I was wrong."

Every man who did his duty was sure of precisely such thoughtful and unselfish appreciation, if by any means the facts in the case could be brought to the knowledge of the President. Sometimes, beyond question, the facts were not so brought to his knowledge, and injustice followed; but it was never by any neglect upon the part of Mr. Lincoln. Even injured men came to so understand the matter at last, and few were so unreasonable as to demand from him omniscience as well as justice. As a whole, the record of his assignments to duty will bear a remarkably close scrutiny, and his continual discoveries of the men he was looking for were notably justified by their subsequent careers and achievements. His personal attachments, strong as they admittedly were, never were permitted to come between him and his perception of the re

quirements of the public service. His oldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, was a student at college when the war broke out. His father did but restrain the young man's enthusiastic impulse to join the army and kept him at his books until his course of study was completed. A subordinate staff appointment was then given him, just as such appointments were given to hundreds of other bright young men, and there all parental "favoritism" terminated. The President's son served to the end of the war and left the army as a simple captain. It is more than probable that his abilities would have given him a higher grade but that his very birthright was in his way. The record conveys its lesson forcibly.

The remainder of the summer and autumn of the year 1863 was well marked by military activities and successes, and only here and there by any considerable check to the national arms, both in the East and West. Very much the most important work accomplished, however, was largely in the nature of a clearing up and securing title to the ground already won, and preparing for the final struggle.

The results of the fall elections were such as might have been expected. The reaction of popular feeling from deep depression to buoyant hope was sufficient to carry every State but one, New Jersey, for the Administration. Even there the combined opposition assumed an attitude of earnest Unionism. A Congress was secured which could be depended on for voting the last man and the last dollar for war purposes. It nevertheless contained a number of active and able men who were anything but well pleased with Mr. Lincoln's personal control of the affairs in his hands. There was little to be wondered at in this. He was no tyrant, indeed, and he was thoughtfully cautious in his respect for all the prerogatives of the legislative branch of the government; but the fact of his autocracy within his own sphere was often painfully manifest. The United States contained but one President, and he was necessarily dictatorial in war times: and his name was Abraham

Lincoln. It was not always pleasant for some other man, strong of will and conscious of capacity and of good purposes towards himself and his country, when brought into sudden contact or collision with an unyielding power he had never felt before.

Very little public grumbling was done, however, before Congress assembled at Washington, for the people were hardly in a state of mind to listen to it kindly, except from mouthpieces of the beaten "opposition." The President, without especially laboring for it, was fast rallying to his personal support the great religious element which, in all its diversified forms of doctrinal belief and of semi-repudiation of doctrinal belief, is the positive body and soul of the American people. He was uniting, as one man, the multitude of earnest hearts that believed, absolutely, that the cause of the Union was the cause of the God Almighty.

On the 15th of July, 1863, he issued a proclamation, immediately following up his previous utterances of a similar nature, in which he named the 6th of August as a day of public thanksgiving and prayer. He asked all men and women to "render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation's behalf; and invoke the influences of his Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insurgents; to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency; and to visit with tender care and consolation, throughout the length and breadth of our land, all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles, and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate; and finally, to lead the whole nation through paths of repentance and submission to the Divine Will, back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace."

That was a grand prayer-meeting; and it was led by the President in person. He made the customary "Thanksgiving