ginia, was selected. That battle was a small affair, but it had compelled the Confederates to abandon that section of country, and General McClellan was already regarded as a great commander. He was called to Washington, and commissioned by President Lincoln.

"General McClellan would like to meet the correspondents in Washington. Please be at Willard's Hotel this evening at eight o'clock."

Such was the invitation which the newspaper correspondents received on the morning of August 1, 1861. They assembled at the hotel, stepped into omnibuses, were taken to General McClellan's headquarters, and introduced to him.

"I have one request to make-that you will be careful not to write anything from which the enemy will learn what is going on," he said.

His words were few, but pleasant. The next day all the country was reading about the interview; how General McClellan looked and acted. One correspondent said that he resembled Napoleon Bonaparte, and the people began to speak of him as "Little Napoleon," and to have great expectations of victory with such an officer as commander-in-chief.

It takes much money to carry on a great war-to pay the soldiers and officers, and buy horses, tents, wagons, muskets, swords, cannon, boots, clothing, oats, corn, hay; to build ships and steamboats.

"Which will win, the North or the South?" was the question a banker in London asked of Baron Rothschild, who had a great deal of money, and who never lent it without getting good security and interest.

It is industry that keeps the purse full. Baron Rothschild knew that the Southern people had no manufactories; that they had invented no labor-saving machines; that their property was in land and slaves. He knew that they had only cotton and tobacco to sell; that with all the seaports blockaded they would have no market; that the slaves might run away or be set free, and that in a short time they would be of little value.

He knew that the people of the North had set mill-wheels to whirling, and were employing the energy of nature to do the work of human hands; that their property was in small farms, houses, mills, machinery; that labor was free; that it could tax itself; that it could borrow money, promising to pay in the future. This far-seeing man comprehended that the Southern people would see their property disappear; that they would exhaust the country of supplies; that they would create a debt which they never

would be able to pay; and that after a while the Confederacy, reared on slave labor, would go down with a crash.

This story of the war would be very incomplete were I to leave out the position and influence of England in the struggle. Very soon after the surrender of Fort Sumter, and before Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who had been appointed Minister to England, reached London, the British Government recognized the Confederates as belligerents—or as a people exercising war powers-which the people of the United States regarded as a very unfriendly act. But the great manufacturers of England who wanted cotton, the merchants who wanted to sell goods, saw that if the Southern ports were blockaded all trade with the Southern States would cease. They were greatly offended, also, because Congress, in order to get money to carry on the war, put a high tax on all goods manufactured in other countries and brought to the United States for sale. So it came about that the manufacturers, merchants, and traders of Great Britain sympathized with the Southern people. They subscribed money to buy cannon, muskets, powder, and shells, which they gave to the Confederates. They built fastsailing ships, and loaded them with all kinds of goods to run the blockade, sailing from Liverpool for the Bahama Islands, which lie only two hundred miles east of the coast of Florida, thence for Charleston, running past the blockading - vessels at night, supplying the Confederates with arms, ammunition, and supplies, and carrying cotton back to England.

Most of the nobles, dukes, lords, and barons hoped the government which the people of the United States had established would be destroyed. Their sympathy was with the people of the South. Most of the newspapers in England praised the Southern people as gentlemen fighting for the freedom of their country against the Northern people, whom they called low-born, selfish Yankees.

"The North," said the London Times, when it received the news of the battle of Bull Run, “has lost all-even military honor. We have been cheated out of our sympathies. We don't like to laugh. Seventy-five thousand American patriots have fled twenty miles in an agony of fear, though there was nobody pursuing them. The United States of America have ceased to be. The Union has burst asunder by explosive forces generated within itself, and now the two republics stand like cliffs which of old were the same rock, but which can never be united."

The men who owned cotton mills wanted the South to triumph; not so the men and women who tended the spinning frames and looms in Lincolnshire. They had little cotton to spin and little food to eat, but when times were hardest, when their cheeks were thin and pale for want of food,

when their children were asking for bread, they came together and held prayer-meetings, asking Almighty God to give victory to the people of the Northern States. They knew that it was a struggle between free and slave labor; that the people of the North were fighting a battle for the oppressed of every land.

"For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along

Round the earth's electric circle the flash of right or wrong."

Turning once more to the distant West, we see General Lyon in southwestern Missouri, at Springfield, with about five thousand men, most of whom are soon to return to their homes, the term of enlistment being nearly expired. They are, many of them, without shoes; their uniforms are in tatters. General Lyon has called for reinforcements, but the Government has calls from every quarter. It is the 8th of August, and on the 14th the time of the three months' men will expire. There is a Confederate army at Wilson's Creek, ten miles beyond Springfield, towards the south-west, under General McCulloch and General Price. General Lyon estimated them at twenty thousand; General Price's adjutant-general, Sneed, says that there were eleven thousand. It is probable that the Confederates outnumbered the Union soldiers nearly three to one. Another Confederate army, under General Hardee, numbering nine thousand, farther east, was advancing to get between General Lyon and St. Louis, thus cutting off his retreat.

We must not forget that the people of Missouri are taking sides as in no other State. The great majority are for the Union. Shall General Lyon abandon this section of the State? Shall he turn back from the people who are looking to the old flag for protection? The Confederates have a large force of cavalry, and if he attempts to retreat, the cavalry will gain the advance, McCulloch will follow in swift pursuit, and his little force will be ground to powder. He believes it will be far better to advance and strike a powerful blow before retreating.

The day has been hot The soldiers eat their nine o'clock the bugles

The sun has gone down, the stars are shining. and sultry, but the night is cool and refreshing. supper, the battery horses munch their corn. At sound, and the artillerymen jump upon their seats. The drums tap lightly, and the soldiers fall into line. The columns wheel into the road-one, under Colonel Sigel, with six guns, taking a road which leads south; the other, under General Lyon, leading south-west. Colonel Sigel is to attack the right flank and rear of the Confederates, while General Lyon is to hurl his troops upon their front. A small force is left to guard the camp.

General Lyon had in his column the First Missouri, First Iowa, First and Second Kansas regiments, two companies of the Second Missouri Riflemen, eight companies of United States Regulars, ten cannon, two companies of cavalry-about three thousand five hundred.

Colonel Sigel had the Third and Fifth Missouri regiments, six cannon, and two companies of cavalry-about one thousand one hundred. Colonel Sigel was to make the attack, and when General Lyon heard the sound of his cannon he was to attack in front.

Wilson's Creek is a small stream winding amid wooded swells of land, with here and there a field or pasture.

The morning was dawning. Some of the Confederate soldiers were asleep, others rekindling their fires and putting their frying-pans upon the coals, cutting slices of ham for their breakfast, when they heard a rattling of musketry a mile away. A picket came running in. "The Yankees are coming!" he shouted.

The drums beat the long roll, the bugles sounded; frying-pans were tossed aside; soldiers ran hither and thither. The regiments formed in hot haste, for General Lyon was driving in the pickets. Captain Totten's battery was sending its shells into camp from the north, and Sigel's guns were opening from the east.

We see General Lyon's line moving down the road, the battalion of regulars, under Captain Plummer, in advance. Major Osterhaus commands the skirmishers on the right. Captain Totten wheels his six cannon into position, and the shells go hissing into the Confederate camp. Lieutenant-colonel Andrews, with the First Missouri, supports him. The First Kansas comes up on the left. Up the ridge they drive the Confed

erates.

Leaving General Lyon's troops for a moment, let us go through the woods south-east to the other road, on which Sigel is moving. His two companies of cavalry are in advance. In the dim gray of the morning the cavalrymen see Confederate soldiers coming down the road from their camp with pails and kettles, on their way to the creek for water. The cavalrymen ride into the fields, circle around them, and the Confederates suddenly discover that they are prisoners.

The troops press on. They can see the white tents of the Confederates on the slope of a hill. The smoke is curling up from the camp-fires. Sigel whirls four cannon into position and opens fire. There is a sudden commotion. Some of the Confederates flee, panic-stricken, through the fields. Far better for Sigel-far better for the fortunes of the day, if, instead of firing, he had pressed on with his troops; then he could have capt

ured many prisoners. The Third and Fifth regiments crossed the creek and took possession of the camp. He had fallen upon the Commissary Department of the Confederate army. Around the camp were quarters of beef hanging on stakes and

poles. There was a corral of cattle, another of horses.

The Confederate troops had fled, but they were rallying on another hill. Sigel brought

up his cannon and once more opened fire. He could hear the uproar on the other road growing louder and coming nearer. Lyon was advancing. Looking across the hills towards the north-west he could see the battle-cloud rising above the tree-tops. General Lyon is driving all before him, was the thought that came to him.

"Lyon's men are coming up the road towards us," said Sigel's skirmishers.

Lieutenant-colonel Albert, commanding the Third Missouri Regiment, and Colonel Salomen, commanding the Fifth, saw a brigade of troops coming through the fields. Above them floated the Stars and Stripes. The color-bearer was waving it as a signal to them not to fire.

"They are Lyon's troops. Don't fire!" said the officer. The men stand at ease. The advancing line halts. Suddenly muskets flame, and shells from a battery crash through the woods.

"They are Lyon's troops firing on us!" The cry runs along the line. Up, almost to the muzzles of Sigel's cannon, rush the Confederates, shooting horses, capturing five of the guns, killing and wounding nearly three hundred men. Back through the fields flee Sigel's troops-their part in

the battle ended.

Passing over now to the Confederate camp, we see General McCulloch marshalling his forces. It is half-past five when the rattle of musketry breaks on the skirmish line.

In front of the position where General Lyon is advancing are the troops commanded by Generals Slack, Clark, McBride, Parsons, and Rains.