sweeping majority sustained him. When that vote was taken another resolution was passed providing that the next Grand Council of Delegates should be held in connection with the next National Convention of the Republican Party. That is, it was a distinct declaration that the Union League proposed the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for a second term as President of the United States.

The remainder of the Summer and the Autumn of 1863 contained many military events of importance. By the end of October General Grant was in charge of the new and wide authority given him in the West. All the armies of the Union were strengthened by re-enforcements obtained through the stern operation of the Draft Act, and the Confederacy made its own conscription more severely than before, to prepare for what many of its best generals admitted to be a useless continuation of the struggle. It was a period for rallying, if not of resting, and for something like mournful congratulation that the very worst was over.

A piece of land upon which many men had fallen, part of the battlefield of Gettysburg, was selected for a national cemetery, to receive the remains of the dead heroes of that fight. It was to be solemnly set apart as a soldiers' burial ground upon November 19th, 1863, and the President was invited to be present. Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, was to be the orator of the occasion. The speech he made before the great assembly which came to listen was worthy of his high fame. Mr. Lincoln also was expected to speak, but the pressure of his official

duties prevented him from making any special preparation. After setting out from Washington, and while in the railway car that carried him, he wrote, and he afterward uttered at Gettysburg, a few words which are not likely to be forgotten :

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon 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 dedicated, can long endure. We are met upon a great battlefield of that war. We are come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that the 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 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 for us, that from these honored dead we may take increased devotion to the 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 the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

The work was unfinished, but the multitudes who heard or read that speech were profoundly infused with the devotionally patriotic spirit which breathed in every line of it. The American people, of whatever creed or anti-creed, are essentially religious. There had been a unanimous approval when the President's announcement of the Fourth of July

victories called for a recognition of the divine mercy, and when, a few days later, he named August 6th as a day of national thanksgiving and prayer. The annual Thanksgiving Day, in November, became national instead of local, by the proclamation with which he appointed its date, and December 6th was shortly afterward made the occasion of another national prayer-meeting in honor of the successes gained in East Tennessee.

The Autumnal elections presented a very readable report of the reaction of popular opinion in favor of the Lincoln Administration. Every State except New Jersey was carried by the candidates of the Republican Party, and the Congress chosen was prepared to give the President unlimited support, however much grumbling might be done by some of its patriotic members while so doing. When it assembled, it received from him a message which was a very condensed but complete and hopeful report of progress. It contained also a sure prophecy of the end approaching, but set forth plainly the necessity for a steady continuance of the dedication and consecration which he had spoken of in the Gettysburg cemetery.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Grant in Command-Conventions and NominationsThe Presidential Campaign—The Wilderness-The Constitutional Amendment-Second Inauguration Address-Last Battles-Fall of Richmond and Surrender of Lee's Army-The Finished Work of Abraham Lincoln.

THE career of General Grant was followed, step by step, from the beginning, by an amount of searching analysis and adverse criticism well adjusted to the nature and prominence of his military achievements. The President was greatly aided in this manner in reaching the conclusion that, whatever might be the general's defects or shortcomings, he was the right man to be placed in unfettered charge of the closing processes of the Civil War.

The grade of lieutenant-general, previously conferred only upon General Scott, was revived, by Act of Congress, February 29th, 1864, with the wellunderstood purpose of enabling General Grant to become the ranking officer of the army. He was summoned to Washington, and received his commission at the hands of Mr. Lincoln, at the Executive Mansion, on March 9th. General Halleck and the members of the Cabinet were present on the occasion. The remarks made on either side were brief but weighty, and from that hour forward, as the

general afterward testified, the direction of the Army of the Potomac, and of all other armies, so far as might be, was left without reserve in the hands of the lieutenant-general commanding. A vast load was thereby lifted from the weary shoulders of the President, with an additional relief in the appointment of General Sherman as Grant's successor in charge of the consolidated Department of the West. There was much clearing-up work yet to be done in such States as Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and in many localities elsewhere, but the remaining forces of the Confederacy were now pretty well concentrated for final defeat in the Army of Northern Virginia under Lee, to be met by the Army of the Potomac under Grant, and in the army under Johnston, to be dealt with by General Sherman and General Thomas.

The people of the Confederacy-that is, of all that remained of it-were weary of their long strain and drain, but they were without any means for making themselves heard, since the government which they had set up had become an irresponsible military despotism, relentlessly bent upon holding out to the

last.

The people of the Northern States were also weary, but they were not suffering. The actual losses of life by reason of the war had not consumed the natural increase of the arms-bearing population. The tide of European immigration had been checked, however, and everywhere the labor of all workmen was in active demand at high wages, for business of all sorts was stimulated to unnatural activity by the