ours were not. They had wives whom they held in their bosoms, and they pressed them closer, and they became dearer, at every signal of danger.

I need not say what these men have gone through; nor can I tell their number. That record is kept on high. Not half of their sufferings or endurance will be known till the revelations of "the last day." If heroism is to be measured by the amount of danger encountered and torture endured rather than sacrifice honor and principle, the men and the women of the border States will have the highest meed of praise awarded to them forever.

That no charge of partiality or unfairness may be brought against the statements I make, which could be proved from a thousand sources, of the atrocities perpetrated on Union men by the Confederates, I quote from the resolutions unanimously adopted by the "Union Democratic Convention" held in Louisville the past month (March, 1863), composed of delegates from every Congressional District in the State.

"Resolved, That the people of Kentucky have suffered every insult and injury at the hands of the so-called Southern Confederacy, and are stimulated by every motive of interest and honor to oppose and overthrow it. This Confederacy has sought and now seeks to break up the Union, forever dear and necessary to them the people of Kentucky; and when by their often-repeated decisions they refused to join in the work of treason, infamy, and ruin, it trampled down their State Constitution, put up a weak and usurping Government over them, and placed pretended Senators and Congressmen in its conclave at Richmond, assuming to speak their voice; it invaded their State with armies, and sought to conquer and carry them away from a Union they revered to one they detested. It ravaged by bands of marauders-not soldierstheir fields time and again; robbed them of their public revenues and private property; destroyed their public records; burned their towns and houses; carried away their non-com

batant citizens into long and loathsome imprisonment, where many still languish; murdered many of them, sometimes in their own homes and in the presence of their families, and sometimes by cruel and infamous deaths, extending their atrocities even to women and children, thus setting at defiance all the laws of civilized warfare; and these efforts have continued and increased with the increasing aversion of the people of Kentucky towards all its wicked designs, and now threaten to break with fresh force upon that State and people. That therefore the people of Kentucky can never cease their efforts for their own protection, and condign punishment of the authors of these wrongs, and the complete overthrow of the rebel Confederacy; and all citizens of Kentucky, if any there be, who refuse to support their State and fellow-citizens against such unprovoked wrongs and cruelties, or profess to sympathize with such enemies, are false to their allegiance, to friends, neighbors, State, and nation. That, nevertheless, of one thing the people of the revolted and the loyal States, and of the world, may rest assured: Kentucky will submit to such a despotism only when she has no power to resist it."

Yes, the people of Kentucky have had to pass through the fire; and fire educates men quick. So have hundreds of thousands in Tennessee, Missouri, Virginia, and North Carolina. Of what they have gone through we heard only a tithe, and comprehended still less.

But the hour of their emancipation is hastening. They alone can hereafter retard it. Their only salvation is to come in, heart and soul, with the cause of the Union, and give up all for that. They must give up slavery: they must not try to save it. Every effort to protract its life only hastens its doom, and prolongs the sufferings of its protectors.

Come forward, then, and rank yourselves with the friends of the Union, and the whole North and the whole world are with you.

The voice of God to the border States is sounding with

clarion notes:- "Come out from her, my people,

-

not partakers of her plagues."

"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?"

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee, and the glory of the Lord shall be thy rearward."

"Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting nor destruction within thy borders: but thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."

A most graphic illustration of this divine philosophy for the government of nations is found in a speech delivered by Cassius M. Clay before the law department of the University (Albany, Feb. 3, 1863). In closing he says,

"When, long years ago, knowing the nature of slavery, we desired by peaceable means to check its power and to subject it to the civilizing influences of the age, North and South, we were told to be quiet:-time would cure all things,—Providence would provide a remedy. In peace the time had not come; and now in war the time has not come! In vain we gave utterance to the 'voiceless woe' of the four millions of men, women, and children in slavery, and implored the eight millions of whites to let the oppressed go free. The prejudice of color bound the non-slaveholding whites, alike with the black, to the masters' chariot-wheels. See them now like dumb cattle driven to the slaughter; they are thrown in heaps into their last resting-places: no stone marks their dishonored graves. See now 'the desolator desolate!' Within the shattered hovel, by the broken hearth-stone, the wan, expectant wife gathers her ragged, starving children. Alas! the husband,

the father, and the brother will return no more! Yes, Providence at last speaks! By the wasted fields, the blighted industries, the exhausted treasures, the desolated hearth-stones, the tears of the widow and the orphan, and the shedding of blood, Deity calls upon us to execute justice. The madness of the parricides has broken the shield of the Constitution. Men of the North, having now the legal equitable power over slavery, I warn you too that God decrees liberty to all or to none! The hopes and fears of a life-struggle are with me crowded into a day. I would that you could feel as I do the urgency of the crisis, which determines the destiny. of so many millions now living, and the vastly more millions yet to be born. Then would you be persuaded that as much as the liberation of the slaves is a 'war measure,' yet far more is it a 'peace measure.' If you would have peace, be just; for justice is the only peace."

XXXIV.

The Commissariat of the Army.

SOON after the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter reached New York, I had the pleasure of meeting one evening several accomplished military men (Europeans and Americans) at the Astor House, when the military situation of the country was thoroughly discussed. At their request, I drew up a brief presentation of their views for the public press. I extract here a paragraph or two, as it appeared in the New York "Daily Times," from that portion which concerned the commissariat, this being the chief subject of their solicitude in view of the rising emergency of setting an immense army of new men in the field.

Although the entire plan proposed was not adopted, it was gratifying to know that, with the full approval of that mature and gallant soldier, Major-General Wool,* it received

I can scarcely withhold from the reader a very characteristic and noble letter from this great and loyal-hearted man, written in the beginning of the rebellion. It was through strange councils that this accomplished soldier was so long kept from active service in the field, while his eye was not yet dimmed nor his natural force abated.

"TROY, 12th May, 1861. "DEAR SIR:-I thank you for your kind favor of the 7th instant. Absence from head-quarters has prevented me from acknowledging it before the present moment.

"I am much gratified to find you—as well as all my friends-ready and determined to defend the right and our country in this moment of great peril. After thirty years of incessant efforts, treason has done its worst. I had hoped Virginia, having before her the examples of her great men, among whom stood Washington, the Father of his Country, would have