"making reconnoissances, scouting and picketing," and forced marches "while endeavoring to reach Stuart's cavalry." The President rejoined (on the 26th): "Of course you know the facts better than I. Still, two considerations remain: Stuart's cavalry outmarched ours, having certainly done more marked service on the Peninsula and everywhere since. Secondly, Will not a movement of our army be a relief to the cavalry, compelling the enemy to concentrate instead of 'foraging' in squads everywhere? But I am so rejoiced to learn from your dispatches to General Halleck that you began crossing the river this morning."

Two infantry divisions and a brigade of cavalry crossed the Potomac at Berlin that day. Nearly all the remainder of the army was on the Virginia side by the second day of November. The long waiting had not been for the lack of numbers much superior to those of the enemy, or on account of such destitution of supplies or means of any kind as to compel delay, even had there been no positive orders to advance to positions where everything needed could quite as readily be received. Halleck, a good authority on war matters, discerned a more real embarrassment in what he deemed an excess of baggage and a deficiency of walking exercise on the part of the soldiers. In a dispatch to McClellan (October 7th) Halleck had said:

There is a decided want of legs in our troops. They have too much immobility, and we must try to remedy the defect. A reduction of baggage and baggage trains will effect something, but the real difficulty is, they are not sufficiently exercised in marching; they lie still in camp too long. After a hard march, one day is time enough to rest. Lying still beyond that time does not rest the men.

Now that breaking camp was actually begun, in the last days of October and the earliest of November, the good weather so long enjoyed was interrupted, and McClellan reported that "heavy rains delayed the movement considerably." The several corps slowly advanced by way of Lovettsville, Snicker's Gap, and Rectortown, along the southern base of Blue Ridge, until finally massed near Warrenton. Lee promptly retired up the Shenandoah Valley, as he would have done six weeks earlier (if permitted to escape at all), had he been vigorously pursued on his retreat from Sharpsburg. He now made all the haste necessary to keep out of danger until he reached Gordonsville.

A special messenger from the War Department arrived at the headquarters of the Army of the Potomac on the evening of November 7th, with an order to General McClellan, relieving him of the command and designating General Burnside as his successor.

CHAPTER XI.

1862.

Sunday Proclamation - Lincoln's Religion-Message to Congress.

Among the many volunteer counsellors of President Lincoln, by letter and in person, there were loyal and good men who expressed concern that Sunday was not more piously regarded in the army and navy; and especially that battles were sometimes fought on that day. The President, who had not found it possible, even at the White House, to keep the day as a Puritan Sabbath, mildly hinted to one of these gentlemen that military movements depended somewhat upon Confederate as well as Union commanders. He desired, however, that the soldiers and sailors should, so far as practicable, enjoy the same benefits of a day of rest as people engaged in peaceful pursuits. On the 16th of November (1862) he issued an order enjoining "the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service," saying in conclusion: "The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded, and should ever be defended: The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as

becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.'

Whether Secretary Seward supplied the rhetoric of Executive proclamations conventionally devout, matters little. Lincoln certainly was not, as to the habit of his life, a strict "Sabbatarian.” His religious faith differed from that of Oliver Cromwell; but was it any less firm and sincere than his? When told by a clerical visitor that no one was ever before so remembered in the prayers of the people, especially of those not praying to be "heard of men," he replied: "I have been a good deal 'helped by just that thought." It was an instant answer from the heart unquestionably; yet not every one will give his words the same interpretation. He "thanked God for the churches" on one public occasion; he appreciated their work for good to the race; he welcomed their organized power in support of a just cause; yet he joined no church. Almost all the "articles of belief and confessions of faith" he once- and probably many times avowed to be such that he could not consent to them "without mental reservation." What did he, then, really believe? Those who seek an honest answer will find help from a study of this short letter, written a few weeks later, (February 22, 1863,) to the Rev. Alexander Reed:

My Dear Sir: -Your note, by which you, as General Superintendent of the United States Christian Commission, invite me to preside at a meeting to be held this day at the hall of the House of Representatives in this city, is received.

While, for reasons which I deem sufficient, I must decline to preside, I can not withhold my approval of the meeting and its worthy objects.

Whatever shall be, sincerely and in God's name, devised

for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty, can scarcely fail to be blessed; and whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them on the vast and long-enduring consequences, for weal or for wo, which are to result from the struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, can not but be well for us all.

The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed.

These words came from the depths of one of the saddest of human souls. The last three months had been to him a period of such actual calamity and evil portent as might well disturb the stoutest spirit.

In his message of December 1st (1862), the President, after disposing of departmental details, treats chiefly of proposed emancipation with compensation and colonization, to be provided for under constitutional amendments formulated by him, and urgently pressed in a prolonged argument, with this axiom for its starting point: "Without slavery, the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery, it could not continue." To this may be added a "text" quoted by him from his inaugural address: "One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute."

So sagacious a statesman may never have really entertained a hope of consummating a scheme of emancipation and colonization combined; but the following passages show that at least he was terribly earnest in