part escaped in the darkness. The Union troops CHAP. X. entered the fort immediately and succeeded in capturing over six hundred prisoners and thirty heavy guns. As soon as the sun rose on the 9th Apr., 1865. -the sun whose rising saw Sheridan athwart Lee's front at Appomattox, and whose setting saw the Confederate banners furled forever in Virginia preparations were promptly made for the final assault upon Fort Blakely, which was to close the war in Alabama.

--

At half-past five in the afternoon, Steele ordered his forces to assault the fort. It was a strong work, surrounded with every obstacle which the Confederates had been able in a year's leisure to place before it; but the Union troops, flushed with success, went at it with such spirit that neither ditch, abatis, nor a storm of grape and canister could keep them out. The colored troops on the right of the line especially distinguished themselves by their courage and conduct in this final grapple with their former masters. At seven o'clock the Union forces were in possession of the work, with all the garrison, some three hundred prisoners, and a great store of guns, flags, and small arms. They lost heavily in killed and wounded-about a thousand, to the Confederates' five hundred.

Mobile was at the mercy of Canby and Thatcher, but three more days were required in which to complete the work. The fleet busied itself next day in clearing away torpedoes and working its way up abreast of the captured forts. The guns of Spanish Fort were now turned on Forts Huger and Tracy a little to the north, and the navy aidVOL. IX.-16

CHAP. X. ing, the Confederates were driven from them on Apr., 1865. the 11th and the blue-jackets took possession. Commander Pierce Crosby continued his work with the torpedoes, reaping a plentiful harvest : he lifted that day one hundred and fifty. When a safe path was opened, Commander James S. Palmer with the Octorara and the ironclads threaded his way through the Blakely and Tensaw rivers to within a mile of Mobile, where the fair city lay helpless beneath his guns. Admiral Thatcher about the same time went directly across the bay, with eight thousand troops under Gordon Granger, towards the city, which at once surrendered. The Confederate army and navy had fled up the Tombigbee river, having previously sunk the ironclads Huntsville and Tuscaloosa, which had passed all their inglorious lives at the wharf.

Commander Palmer was dispatched up the Tombigbee in pursuit of the flying Confederate navy; but the banks of that quiet stream were spared the spectacle of a naval battle. Commodore E. Farrand surrendered his fleet of one ironclad and four river steamers at Citronelle,' on the 4th of May, at the same time that General Taylor capitulated with his army. One hundred and twelve naval officers, two hundred and eighty-five enlisted men, and twenty-four marines were paroled a proportion of epaulettes which showed how the Confederacy had gone to seed. A week before, the rebel navy in the Mississippi had come to a violent end. The ram Webb, which had gained a reputation in the West by the destruction of the 1 The memorandum of surrender gives Sidney as the place, but the meeting was at Citronelle, according to all reports.

Indianola, was ready for sea when the final catastrophe came at Appomattox; she was loaded with cotton, rosin, and turpentine, and her officers determined to make a bold break for freedom and a market. She passed New Orleans in broad day on the 24th of April, flying the Union flag, and steaming rapidly down the river. She was recognized, a few ineffectual shots were fired at her, and four steamers started in pursuit. She had a good lead and might have escaped; but about twenty-five miles below the city she met the Richmond coming up-stream. This was her sentence of death. Her commander ran her ashore and set her afire; her inflammable cargo blazed up like tinder; her crew scrambled on shore and were captured.

CHAP. X.

1865.

CHAP. XI.

THE

CHAPTER XI

THE CHICAGO SURRENDER

HE Democratic managers had called the National Convention of their party to meet on the Fourth of July, 1864; but after the nomination of Frémont at Cleveland and of Lincoln at Baltimore it was thought prudent to postpone it to a later date, in the hope that something in the chapter of accidents might arise to the advantage of the opposition. It appeared for a while as if this manœuvre were to be successful. As a vessel shows its finest sailing qualities against a head wind, so the best political work is always done in the face of severe opposition; and as the Republican party had as yet no enemy before it, the canvass, during its first months, seemed stricken with languor and apathy. The military situation was far from satisfactory. The terrible fighting in the Wilderness, succeeded by Grant's flank movement to the left, and the culmination of the campaign in the horrible slaughter at Cold Harbor, had profoundly shocked and depressed the country. The movement upon Petersburg, so far without decisive results, had contributed little of hope or encouragement; the campaign of Sherman in Georgia gave as yet no positive assurance of the brilliant result

it afterwards attained; the Confederate raid into CHAP. XI. Maryland and Pennsylvania, in July, was the cause of great annoyance and exasperation.

1864.

This untoward state of things in the field of military operations found its exact counterpart in the political campaign. Several circumstances contributed to divide and discourage the Administration party. The resignation of Mr. Chase, on the last day of June, had seemed, to not a few leading Republicans of the North, as a presage of disintegration in the Government; Mr. Greeley's mission at Niagara Falls, in spite of the wise and resolute attitude taken by the President in relation to peace negotiations, had unsettled and troubled the minds of many. The Democratic party, not having as yet appointed a candidate nor formulated a platform, were free to devote all their leisure to attacks upon the Administration; and the political fusillade continued with great energy through the summer months. The Republicans were everywhere on the defensive, having no objective point of attack in the opposite lines. The rebel emissaries in Canada, being in thorough concert with the leading peace men of the North, redoubled their efforts to disturb the public tranquillity, and not without success. Mr. Davis says of this period: "Political developments at the North . . . favored the adoption of some action that might influence popular sentiment in the hostile section. The aspect of the peace party was quite encouraging, and it seemed that the real issue to be decided in the of the ConPresidential election in that year was the continuance or cessation of the war." There is remarkable concurrence between this view of Mr. Davis and

Davis, "Rise and Fall

federate Govern

ment." Vol. II.,

p. 611.