encounter denunciation. That man has fallen very low who is regardless of the good opinion of his fellow-men. But reproach can be easily borne when the soul is sustained by the conviction of right. There never was a clearer case of right and of wrong, than in the conflict now raging throughout our land. The question is to be settled, and by the arbitrament of the sword, whether aristocratic usurpation, in its most low, vulgar and groveling form, that of the slaveholder wielding the plantation lash, is to be established upon the ruins of our free Constitution-or whether that glorious charter of human rights, destined to lift up all the downtrodden to dignity, culture and religion, shall make the United States the pioneer nation in ushering in the dawn of millennial glory.*
The comprehensive maps which embellish these pages, were designed by Mr. Ephraim Wells, of New York, and engraved by Messrs. Lossing & Barritt. The steel engravings were designed by Messrs. F. O. C. Darley, and Wm. Mumberger, and engraved by Messrs. J. C. Buttre, J. C. McRae, Geo. E. Perine, S. V. Hunt, W. G. Jackman and II. B. Hall.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., December, 1862.
*The following extract from the Cincinnati Enquirer, very frankly states the concessions which the so-called Peace Party were ready to make, to win back the slaveholders to the Union: "If the Southern Confederates would lay down their arms and come back again into the old Union, we should not haggle very closely about the terms. We are pretty good unconditional Union men. We would be willing to repeal, for instance, all abolition personal liberty bills that nullify the fugitive slave law. We would allow the South to take all their property, slaves included, into the common territories of the Union, and hold it while the territorial condition lasted. We would not molest a slaveholder traveling with his servants and temporarily sojourning in a free State. We would repeal the law abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia, and we would pass all necessary acts to prevent an interference by Northern fanatics with Southern property of any description. All this we would give, if the rebels would lay down their arms and come back again under the old flag, and be once more loyal members of the Union."