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mentioned, order and designate, as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terre Bonne, Lafourche, Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.

And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons.

And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-defence; and I recommend to them that, in all cases when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.

And I further declare and make known that such persons, of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States, to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.

And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious favor of Almighty God.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my name, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

[L. S.]

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MILITARY ADMINISTRATION OF 1862.-THE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MCCLELLAN.

GENERAL MCCLELLAN SUCCEEDS MCDOWELL.-THE PRESIDENT'S ORDER FOR AN ADVANCE. THE MOVEMENT TO THE PENINSULA.-REBEL EVACUATION OF MANASSAS.-ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE PENINSULAR MOVEMENT. THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER TO GENERAL MCCLELLAN.-THE REBEL STRENGTH AT YORKTOWN.-THE BATTLE OF WILLIAMSBURG.-MCCLELLAN'S FEAR OF BEING OVERWHELMED. THE PRESIDENT TO MCCLELLAN.-JACKSON'S RAID IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY.-THE PRESIDENT TO MCCLELLAN.— SEVEN PINES AND FAIR OAKS.-MCCLELLAN'S COMPLAINTS OF MODOWELL. HIS CONTINUED DELAYS.-PREPARES FOR DEFEAT.-CALLS FOR MORE MEN.-HIS ADVICE TO THE PRESIDENT.-PREPARATIONS TO CONCENTRATE THE ARMY.--GENERAL HALLECK TO MCCLELLAN.-APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL POPE.-IMPERATIVE ORDERS TO MCCLELLAN.MCCLELLAN'S FAILURE TO AID POPE.-HIS EXCUSES FOR DELAY.-PROPOSES TO LEAVE.-POPE UNAIDED.-EXCUSES FOR FRANKLIN'S DELAY.HIS EXCUSES PROVED GROUNDLESS.-HIS ALLEGED LACK OF SUPPLIES.— ADVANCE INTO MARYLAND.-THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER TO MCCLELLAN. -HE PROTESTS AGAINST DELAY.-MOCLELLAN RELIEVED FROM COMMAND.-SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT.

THE repulse of the national forces at the battle of Bull Run in July, 1861, aroused the people of the loyal States to a sense of the magnitude of the contest which had been forced upon them. It stimulated to intoxication the pride and ambition of the rebels, and gave infinite encouragement to their efforts to raise fresh troops, and increase the military resources of their Confederation. Nor did the reverse the national cause had sustained for an instant damp the ardor or check the determination of the Government and people of the loyal States. General McDowell, the able and accomplished officer who commanded the army of the United States in that engagement, conducted the operations of the day with signal ability; and his defeat was due, as subsequent disclosures have clearly shown, far more to accidents for which others were re

sponsible, than to any lack of skill in planning the battle, or of courage and generalship on the field. But it was the first considerable engagement of the war, and its loss was a serious and startling disappointment to the sanguine expectations of the people: it was deemed necessary, therefore, to place a new commander at the head of the army in front of Washington. General McClellan, who had been charged, at the outset of the war, with operations in the Department of the Ohio, and who had achieved marked success in clearing Western Virginia of the rebel troops, was summoned to Washington on the 22d of July, and on the 27th assumed command of the Army of the Potomac. Although then in command only of a department, General McClellan, with an ambition and a presumption natural, perhaps, to his age and the circumstances of his advancement, addressed his attention to the general conduct of the war in all sections of the country, and favored the Government and LieutenantGeneral Scott with several elaborate and meritorious letters of advice, as to the method most proper to be pursued for the suppression of the rebellion. He soon, however, found it necessary to attend to the preparation of the army under his command for an immediate resumption of hostilities. Fresh troops in great numbers speedily poured in from the Northern States, and were organized and disciplined for prompt and effective service. The number of troops in and about the Capital when General McClellan assumed command, was a little over fifty thousand, and the brigade organization of General McDowell formed the basis for the distribution of these new forces. By the middle of October this army had been raised to over one hundred and fifty thousand men, with an artillery force of nearly five hundred pieces-all in a state of excellent discipline, under skilful officers, and animated by a zealous and impatient eagerness to renew the contest for the preservation of the Constitution and Government of the United States. The President and Secretary of War had urged the division of the army into corps d'armée, for the purpose of more effective service; but

General McClellan had discouraged and thwarted their endeavors in this direction, mainly on the ground that there were not officers enough of tried ability in the army to be intrusted with such high commands as this division would create.

On the 22d of October, a portion of our forces which had been ordered to cross the Potomac above Washington, in the direction of Leesburg, were met by a heavy force of the enemy at Ball's Bluff, repulsed with severe loss, and compelled to return. The circumstances of this disaster excited a great deal of dissatisfaction in the public mind, and this was still further aggravated by the fact that the rebels had obtained, and been allowed to hold, complete control of the Potomac below Washington, so as to establish a virtual and effective blockade of the Capital from that direction. Special efforts were repeatedly made by the President and Navy Department to clear the banks of the river of the rebel forces, known to be small in number, which held them, but it was found impossible to induce General McClellan to take any steps to aid in the accomplishment of this result. In October he had promised that on a day named, four thousand troops should be ready to proceed down the river to cooperate with the Potomac flotilla under Captain Craven; but at the time appointed the troops did not arrive, and General McClellan alleged, as a reason for having changed his mind, that his engineers had informed him that so large a body of troops could not be landed. The Secretary of the Navy replied that the landing of the troops was a matter of which that department assumed the responsibility; and it was then agreed that the troops should be sent down the next night. They were not sent, however, either then or at any other time, for which General McClellan assigned as a reason the fear that such an attempt might bring on a general engagement. Captain Craven upon this threw up his command, and the Potomac remained closed to the vessels and transports of the United States until it was opened in March of the next year by the voluntary withdrawal of the rebel forces.

On the 1st of November, General McClellan was appointed by the President to succeed General Scott in the command of all the armies of the Union, remaining in personal command of the Army of the Potomac. His attention was then of necessity turned to the direction of army movements, and to the conduct of political affairs, so far as they came under military control, in the more distant sections of the country. But no movement took place in the Army of the Potomac.

The season had been unusually favorable for military operations--the troops were admirably organized and disciplined, and in the highest state of efficiency—in numbers they were known to be far superior to those of the rebels opposed to them, who were nevertheless permitted steadily to push their approaches towards Washington, while, from the highest officer to the humblest private, our forces were all animated with an eager desire to be led against the enemies of their country. As winter approached without any indications of an intended movement of our armies, the public impatience rose to the highest point of discontent. The Administration was everywhere held responsible for these unaccountable delays, and was freely charged by its opponents with a design to protract the war for selfish political purposes of its own; and at the fall election the public dissatisfaction made itself manifest by adverse votes in every considerable State where elections were held.

Unable longer to endure this state of things, President Lincoln put an end to it on the 27th of January, 1862, by issuing the following order :

EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, January 27, 1862.

Ordered, That the twenty-second day of February, 1862, be the day for a general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgent forces. That especially the army at and about Fortress Monroe, the Army of the Potomac, the Army of Western Virginia, the army near Munfordsville, Kentucky, the army and flotilla at Cairo, and a naval force in the Gulf of Mexico, be ready to move on that day. That all other forces, both land and naval, with their respective commanders, obey existing orders for the time, and be ready to obey additional orders when duly given.

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