of a bridge across Chattanooga Creek delayed him for hours.

At 3 o'clock an assault on the enemy's center was ordered. The divisions of Sheridan and Wood rushed forward from Orchard Ridge, driving before them the hostile forces in the valley; charging the rifle-pits at the base of the mountain; promptly clearing them; and from thence, without stopping to re-form or awaiting further orders, impetuously mounting up the rocky and precipitous heights; pushing on over the works half way up the mountain side, scattering all before them; and never pausing until quite at the summit. There, too, the enemy turned, and was driven pell mell-running in confusion and panic. The masses pressing Sherman held out a little longer, but they, too, caught the contagion, and the whole army of Bragg was soon in rapid retreat. Orders were at once issued for the dispatch of troops to assist Burnside. Sherman rapidly moved his severely taxed forces by Athens and Loudon to Knoxville, where he arrived on the 6th of December. Longstreet promptly retired from before that place, going through the valley to rejoin Lee at Mine Run.

In these operations Grant had less than sixty thousand men. Bragg's inferiority in numbers would seem to have been fully compensated by his superiority in position. The Union losses were about 750 killed and 4,850 wounded or missing. More than 6,000 of Bragg's army were captured, 361 killed, and 2,180 wounded. On the 8th of December the President telegraphed to, Grant:

Understanding that your lodgment at Chattanooga and Knoxville is now secure, I wish to tender you and all your

command my more than thanks-my profound gratitude for the skill, courage, and perseverance with which you and they, over so great difficulties, have effected that important object. God bless you all.

To Grant's generalship the people now credited, as one season's work, the freeing of the Mississippi and the securing of Chattanooga and Knoxville, achievements which effectually severed one-half of the Confederacy from the other. Meade was justly applauded for his not less auspicious victory at Gettysburg. Of all the battles of the war, this was in a sense the most critical, if not the most decisive. Its immediate results, nevertheless, fell short of what the President and the people hoped. Lee had little difficulty in re-crossing the Potomac with an army sadly reduced, but not broken, a few days after its vanguard left the battle-ground. There were heavy rains and a swollen river, but Meade, after overtaking him, hesitated to strike, and finally, against the judgment of some of his bolder corps commanders, decided not to take the hazard. Lee moved up the Shenandoah Valley and out by Front Royal to Gordonsville. Learning that he was weakened by sending reinforcements to Bragg, Meade crossed the Rappahannock on the 16th of September, and was, in fact, about to cross the Rapidan for offensive operations, when the corps of Howard and Slocum were ordered to Tennessee. This loss was partially made up, soon after, by the arrival of new troops. On the 10th of October, Buford's cavalry was sent beyond the Rapidan, to clear the way for the First and Sixth Corps to cross by the upper fords. The situation and the movements of Lee at this stage suggested a repetition of the last year's campaign against

Pope. Meade's right flank being menaced, he hastily retreated, re-crossing the Rappahannock on the 11th, and making no pause until he reached Centreville. Altogether it was an inglorious retreat. Meade next planned a dash upon the heights of Fredericksburg, to which Halleck refused his consent. Lee was driven from his position beyond the Rappahannock, with considerable loss, on the 7th of November; fell back that night to Culpeper Courthouse; retreated next day beyond the Rapidan, and remained undisturbed at Mine Run through the winter.

Operations against Charleston proceeded this year with more determined energy than before. What had been so easily done at New Orleans was not to be despaired of at the cradle of the rebellion. During the summer there was wistful hope of the fall of Charleston. General O. M. Mitchel, in command of the department at the time of his death (October 30th, 1862), had planned to break the railway line between Charleston and Savannah. The navy had retaken Fort Pulaski, off Savannah; sunk the Nashville and smaller Confederate craft; captured blockade runners, and co-operated in various movements of the army. But Commodore Dupont, like General Hunter (who was restored to the military command after Mitchel's death), had not here satisfied public expectation. Major-General Quincy A. Gillmore replaced Hunter on the 12th of June (1863), and Commodore Dahlgren succeeded Dupont on the 6th of July. Gillmore made an unsuccessful assault on Fort Wagner, one of the Morris Island defenses of Charleston, on the 10th of July, and again a more mem

orable one eight days after, resulting in heavy losses and
another defeat. Then, in the marshes on the western
side of the island he built an earthwork manned by a
single eight-inch Parrott gun, the " Swamp Angel,” and
on the 21st of August summoned Beauregard (now
again in command at Charleston) to surrender Morris
Island and Fort Sumter, on penalty of a bombardment
of the city. Beauregard not complying, some shots
were fired into Charleston, serving little other purpose
than to prove that it could be done.
that it could be done. Fort Wagner was
finally reduced by siege, and occupied on the 7th of
September. After refitting the captured works and
erecting others on Morris Island, armed with the most
powerful mortars and rifled cannon then in use — a mile
or more nearer to Charleston than the Swamp Angel -
Gillmore had a large part of the city within range. The
inhabitants of Charleston mostly removed; there was
an effective bombardment; and blockade-running from
that port was decisively closed. The battering of Fort
Sumter was renewed, and continued until the already
broken walls seemed from without to be little more than
a vast heap of brick dust. Still there was no surrender.
Once, had the Government as persistently held its own,
we know not what might have been.

A new Congress (the Thirty-eighth) met on the 7th of December. In spite of unfavorable indications in the earlier elections, the Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives, which chose Schuyler Colfax, of Indiana, as Speaker by a majority of twenty votes. In his annual message the President speaks like one who has emerged from darkness and unrest into the reviving light and air of advancing dawn. One year ago "the war had already lasted nearly twenty months," with "many conflicts on both land and sea with varying results"; the rebellion "had been pressed back into reduced limits, yet the tone of public feeling at home and abroad was not satisfactory"; "the popular elections, then just past, indicated uneasiness among ourselves; while amid much that was cold and menacing, the kindest words coming from Europe were uttered in accents of pity that we were too blind to surrender a hopeless cause. Our commerce was suffering greatly by a few armed vessels built upon and furnished from foreign shores; and we were threatened with such additions from the same quarter as would sweep our trade from the sea and raise our blockade. We had failed