ability displayed by Sec. Seward' and by Mr. Charles Francis Adams in presenting these claims, and, it must now be recognized, the candor and honesty with which the matter was treated by Earl Russell, the British minister for foreign affairs, saved the two countries from that irreparable disaster; and the British government at last took such measures as were necessary to put an end to this indirect war from the shores of England upon American commerce. In the course of two years the war attained such proportions that volunteering was no longer a sufficient resource to keep the army, consisting at that time of nearly a million men, at its full fighting strength. Congress therefore authorized, and the departments executed, a scheme of enrolment and draft of the arms-bearing population of the loyal states. Violent opposition arose to this measure in many parts of the country, which was stimulated by the speeches of orators of the opposition, and led, in many instances, to serious breaches of the public peace. A frightful riot, beginning among the foreign population of New York, kept that city in disorder and terror

for three days in July, 1863. But the riots were suppressed, the disturbances quieted at last, and the draft was executed throughout the country. Clement I.. Vallandigham, of Ohio, one of the most eloquent and influential orators of the Democratic party, was arrested in Ohio by Gen. Burnside for his violent public utterances in opposition to the war, tried by a military court, and sentenced to imprisonment during the continuance of the war. The president changed his sentence to

that of transportation within the lines of the rebellion. These proceedings caused a great ferment among his party in Ohio, who, by way of challenge to the government, nominated him for governor of that state. A committee of its prominent politicians demanded from the president his restoration to his political rights, and a correspondence took place between them and the president, in which the rights and powers of the government in case of rebellion were set forth by him with great

lucidity and force. His letters exercised an important influence in the political discussions of the year, and Mr. Vallandigham was defeated in his candidacy by John Brough by a majority of 100,000 votes.

The war still continued at a rate that appears rapid enough in retrospect, but seemed slow to the eager spirits watching its course. The disasters of the Army of the Potomac did not end with the removal of Gen. McClellan, which took place in November, 1862, as a consequence of his persistent delay in pursuing Lee's retreating army after the battle of Antietam. Gen. Burnside, who succeeded him, suffered a humiliating defeat in his attack upon the intrenched position of the Confederates at Fredericksburg. Gen. Hooker, who next took command, after opening his campaign by crossing the Rapidan in a march of extraordinary brilliancy, was defeated at Chancellorsville, in a battle where both sides lost severely, and then retired again north of the river. Gen. Lee, leaving the National army on his right flank, crossed the Potomac, and Hooker having, at his own request, been relieved and succeeded by Gen. Meade, the two armies met in a three days' battle at Gettysburg, Pa., where Gen. Lee sustained a decisive defeat, and was driven back into Virginia. His flight from Gettysburg began on the evening of the 4th of July, a day that in this year doubled its lustre as a historic anniversary. For on this day Vicksburg, the most important Confederate stronghold in the west, surrendered to Gen. Grant. He had spent the early months of 1863 in successive attempts to take that fortress, all of which had failed; but on the last day of April he crossed the river at Grand Gulf, and within a few days fought the successful battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and the Big Black river, and shut up the army of Pemberton in close siege in the city of Vicksburg, which he finally captured with about 30,000 men on the 4th of July.

The speech that Mr. Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the National cemetery on the battle-field of Gettysburg, 19 Nov., 1863, was at once recognized as the philosophy in brief of the whole great struggle, and has already become classic. There are slightly differing versions; the one that is here given is a literal transcript of the speech as he afterward wrote it out for a fair in Baltimore:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth

on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate-we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow-this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion-that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Gen. Grant was transferred to Chattanooga, where, in November, with the troops of Thomas, Hooker, and Sherman, he won the important victory of Missionary Ridge; and then, being appointed lieutenant-general and general-in-chief of the armies of the United States, he went to Washington and entered upon the memorable campaign of 1864. This campaign. began with revived hopes on the part of the government, the people, and the army. The president, glad that the army had now at its head a general in whose ability and enterprise he could thoroughly confide, ceased from that moment to exercise any active influence on its movements. He wrote, on 30 April, to Gen. Grant: "The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. . . . If there is anything wanting which is in my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant crossed the Rapidan on 4 May, intending to move by

the right flank of Gen. Lee; but the two armies came together in a gloomy forest called the Wilderness, where, from the 5th to the 7th of May, one of the most sanguinary battles known to modern warfare was fought. Neither side having gained any decisive advantage in this deadly struggle, Grant moved to the left, and Lee met him again at Spottsylvania CourtHouse, where for ten days a series of destructive contests took place, in which both sides were alternately successful. Still moving to the left, Grant again encountered the enemy at the crossing of North Anna river, and still later at Cold Harbor, a few miles northeast of Richmond, where, assaulting Gen. Lee's army in a fortified position, he met with a bloody repulse. He then crossed the James river, intending by a rapid movement to seize Petersburg and the Confederate lines of communication south of Richmond, but was baffled in this purpose, and forced to enter upon a regular siege of Petersburg, which occupied the summer and autumn. While these operations were in progress, Gen. Philip H. Sheridan had made one of the most brilliant cavalry raids in the war, threatening Richmond and defeating the Confederate cavalry under Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, and killing that famous leader. While Grant lay before Richmond, Gen. Lee, hoping to induce him to attack his works, despatched a force under Gen. Early to threaten Washington; but Grant sent two corps of his army northward, and Early-after a sharp skirmish under the fortifications of Washington, where Mr. Lincoln was personally present—was driven back through the Shenandoah valley, and on two occasions, in September and October, was signally defeated by Gen. Sheridan.

Gen. William T. Sherman, who had been left in command of the western district formerly commanded by Grant, moved southward at the same time that Grant crossed the Rapidan. Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, one of the ablest of the Confederate generals, retired gradually before him, defending himself at every halt with the greatest skill and address; but his movements not proving satisfactory to the Richmond government, he was removed, and Gen. John B. Hood appointed in his place. After a summer of hard fighting, Sherman, on 1 Sept., captured Atlanta, one of the chief manufacturing and railroad centres of the south, and later in the autumn organized and executed a magnificent march to the seaboard, which proved that the military power of the Confederacy had been concentrated at a few

points on the frontier, and that the interior was little more than an empty shell. He reached the sea-coast early in December, investing Savannah on the 10th, and capturing the city on the 21st. He then marched northward with the intention of assisting Gen. Grant in the closing scenes of the war. The army under Gen. George H. Thomas, who had been left in Tennessee to hold Hood in check while this movement was going on, after severely handling the Confederates in the preliminary battle of Franklin, 30 Nov., inflicted upon General Hood a crushing and final defeat in the battle of Nashville, 16 Dec., routing and driving him from the state.

During the summer, while Grant was engaged in the desperate and indecisive series of battles that marked his southward progress in Virginia, and Sherman had not yet set out upon his march to the sea, one of the most ardent political canvasses the country had ever seen was in progress at the

Mr. Lincoln, on 8 June, had been unanimously renominated for the presidency by the Republican convention at Baltimore. The Democratic leaders had postponed their convention to a date unusually late, in the hope that some advantage might be reaped from the events of the summer. The convention came together on 29 Aug. in Chicago. Mr. Vallandigham, who had returned from his banishment, and whom the government had sagaciously declined to rearrest, led the extreme peace party in the convention. Prominent politicians of New York were present in the interest of Gen. McClellan. Both sections of the convention gained their point. Gen. McClellan was nominated for the presidency, and Mr. Vallandigham succeeded in imposing upon his party a platform declaring that the war had been a failure, and demanding a cessation of hostilities. The capture of Atlanta on the day the convention adjourned seemed to the Unionists a providential answer to the opposition. Republicans, who had been somewhat disheartened by the slow progress of military events and by the open and energetic agitation that the peace party had continued through the summer at the north, now took heart again, and the canvass proceeded with the greatest spirit to the close. Sheridan's victory over Early in the Shenandoah valley gave an added impulse to the general enthusiasm, and in the October elections it was shown that the name of Mr. Lincoln was more popular, and his influence more powerful, than any