rise and join the insurrection. Our troops having recovered from a temporary disorganization, an army was immediately organized and despatched, under General McClellan, to meet the insurgents at Frederick. The last information we have is that they have promptly evacuated Frederick and advanced westward to Hagerstown. This retreat is supposed to indicate an abandonment of any designs to strike Baltimore or to advance on the north side of the river to the Potomac, while it still leaves them a choice of entering Pennsylvania or of recrossing into Virginia at or above Harper's Ferry.

Acting upon the same general aggressive policy, the insurgents are advancing towards and threatening Cincinnati. These bold movements very naturally produce much excitement and considerable alarm. On the other hand, the armies of the Union are receiving immense reinforcements, and our military authorities express much confidence in their ability to retrieve the losses sustained and prosecute a vigorous and decisive campaign. Although cheerfully indulging these expectations, I do not think it profitable to dwell upon them.

I might give you more details of the military position, but it is likely to change any day. Our forces are being largely augmented, and our generals are confident of their ability to retrieve our losses and restore the former fortunes of the war. While the government indulges this expectation we must abide by results, and news of these will probably reach you sooner than this despatch.

Just at the moment when the mail is about to close authentic information reaches the government that the insurgent forces which have been approaching and menacing Cincinnati and Louisville have receded, and are retreating in Kentucky. The alarm in that quarter has passed.

The insurgent army, which has been threatening Washington, Baltimore, and Pennsylvania, evacuated Frederick on the 12th instant. I now give you a despatch which has just been received from Major General McClellan, which shows the position of the two armies at the present moment.

September 15, 1862. Yesterday we had information that the insurgents in the west had receded and were retreating without waiting to confront the forces prepared to receive them, and to-day we have General McClellan's report of a decisive battle fought by him with the insurgent army in Maryland, with the

results of their retreat and flight, panic stricken and demoralized. 1 It is especially cheering to know that the new volunteers which had been incorporated into McClellan's army without having previously been under fire, and without even having been at all drilled, disciplined or exercised, exhibited a perfect courage and steadiness in the conflict. The nation will acquire new courage, and its persevering resolution to preserve its integrity will be fortified by this great and auspicious victory.

Since my previous despatches were put into the mail General McClellan reports that the battle yesterday mentioned in his telegram proves to have been a complete victory. The enemy was routed, and he fled during the night. McClellan is in pursuit.

A report recently received from General Shepley, Governor of Louisiana, shows the entire freedom of the cotton market in New Orleans.

September 16, 1862. At the time when your application was received here the efficiency of our armies had been impaired in a vigorous though eminently successful campaign. It soon became probable, and more lately it unhappily was proved, that we must fail in the pending movement upon Richmond. Such a disappointment was not unlikely to be followed by positive disasters, the extent of which could not be foreseen. That failure was sure to encourage the emissaries of insurrection in Europe, and the public mind too. readily yielded to apprehensions of intervention in some form which must increase the national embarrassment. Under these circumstances, popular remedies were suggested and urged upon the President. Chief among them was some sort of Executive manifesto or declaration of a determination to make the war more energetic, severe, sanguinary, and destructive in the insurgent States. At the same moment a change long clamored for in the insurgent councils was adopted there, namely, that of withdrawing their armies from their own region, and rapidly throwing them forward upon not this capital alone, but the loyal States of Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. For the moment the war on our part, which had until now been an aggressive one, was to be one of defence, attended with all the alarms and apparent if not real dangers of invasion.

The President, in this emergency, decided to bring together the armies of the Potomac and Virginia, and consolidate them on some

1 At Antietam.

line in that state between this capital and Richmond; to reinforce and augment not only that consolidated army but also all the other forces at his command with six hundred thousand men, to be raised as volunteers, with a draft, if necessary, and be thus prepared to meet and, with promptness and without display of words, to roll back the tide of invasion and complete the war by a vigorous campaign on the coasts, on the Mississippi, and through the mountain passes of eastern Tennessee.

The disasters which were threatened in Virginia actually occurred. The insurgents drove the army of Virginia back upon the line of fortifications and the capital, but not without losses probably equal to our own. They then advanced from Manassas to the fordable passes of the Potomac, crossed that river and entered Frederick, and invited Maryland to rise up and join the treasonable confederacy. There they threatened equally Washington, Baltimore and Pennsylvania. In like manner they gathered forces in Kentucky, in the rear of the army of General Buell, who was investing Chattanooga, and advanced towards the Ohio River, thus threatening the loyal States of Ohio and Indiana, which lie on the north bank of that river. The insurrectionary congress recently assembled approved these aggressive movements, and solemnly proclaimed a purpose to carry the war into the loyal states and inflict upon them, with increased severity, all the rigors of desolating warfare.

Under such changed circumstances, which could not have been foreseen, when you applied for leave of absence, the President thought the national interests required the watchful care of all our trusted representatives in Europe, and he thought it might be especially unfortunate if the mission at St. Petersburg were left without the presence of a Minister of the highest grade and authority known in the diplomatic service. Hence his reluctance to accede to your wishes. It is now hoped that your absence will not be productive of injury to the public service.

Having thus related the military events culminating in the invasion of the loyal states, it is only just that I should bring the narration down to this point. The volunteers are coming in as freely as was expected. More than seventy thousand have reached this city; ten thousand or more are in Baltimore and its vicinity. Sixty thousand have joined the army of the west, and the whole proposed augmentation will be rapidly effected. The insurgents have receded

and are retiring from their late advance towards the Ohio. General McClellan has just met the invaders of Maryland and driven them back towards the Potomac. The loyalty of Maryland has not been disturbed, and Pennsylvania is freed from the apprehensions of danger. With steadiness of purpose, prudence in council, and activity and energy of execution on the part of our commanders, great advantages may be derived from recent misfortunes, and the recklessness of the insurgents may result in the speedy ruin of their always desperate cause.

September 19, 1862. On the 6th instant Robert E. Lee, claiming to be general commanding all the insurgent armies, startled the country by appearing in Fredericktown with a force, as he alleged, of two hundred thousand men. He immediately proclaimed deliverance to the people of Maryland, and invited them to join the treasonable confederacy which he served. To-day without having gained a hundred adherents in the state, and after being defeated in two pitched battles, he is recrossing, under the fire of the Federal troops, into Virginia. This result is indicative of the moral soundness of the Union cause, as well as of the physical strength which it commands.

September 19, 1862. Your despatch in which you [Mr. Dayton] express so much confidence in the stability of the Union, has arrived just at the moment when General McClellan is driving the combined insurgent armies from the Maryland bank of the Potomac back into Virginia. A republican education has, indeed, made all of us politicians; but it must now be confessed that the same education has also made us soldiers, as cheerful to fight the battles of our country as we are bold to discuss its affairs. has ever exhibited such voluntary armies.

I think no nation

September 22, 1862. — The aggressive movement of the insurgents against the loyal states is arrested, and the renewed and reinvigorated forces of the Union are again prepared for a new and comprehensive campaign. The financial strength of the insurrection is rapidly declining, and its ability to bring soldiers into the field has been already taxed to its utmost. On the other hand, the fiscal condition of the country is sound, and the response to the calls for new levies is being made promptly, without drawing seriously upon the physical strength of the people.

It has never been expected by the President that the insurgents should protract this war until it should exhaust not only themselves but the loyal states, and bring foreign armies or navies into the conflict, and still be allowed to retain in bondage, with the consent of this government, the slaves who constitute the laboring and producing masses of the insurrectionary states. At the same time, the emancipation of the slaves could be effected only by executive authority, and on the ground of military necessity. As a preliminary to the exercise of that great power, the President must have not only the exigency, but the general consent of the loyal people of the Union in the border slave states where the war was raging, as well as in the free states which have escaped the scourge, which could only be obtained through a clear conviction on their part that the military exigency had actually occurred. It is thus seen that what has been discussed so earnestly at home and abroad as a question of morals or of humanity has all the while been practically only a military question, depending on time and circumstances. The order for emancipation, to take effect on the first of January, in the states then still remaining in rebellion against the Union, was issued upon due deliberation and conscientious consideration of the actual condition of the war, and the state of opinion in the whole country.

No one who knows how slavery was engrafted upon the nation when it was springing up into existence; how it has grown and gained strength as the nation itself has advanced in wealth and power; how fearful the people have hitherto been of any change which might disturb the parasite, will entend that the order comes too late. It is hoved and believed that after the painful experience we have had of the danger to which the Federal conn-etion with slavery is exposing the Republie the e will be few indeed who will insist that the dec.ee which brings the connection to an end either could or ought to have been farther deferred.

The interests of humanity have now become identified with the cause of our country, and this has resalted not from any infraction of & nstitutional restraints by the government, but from persistent uncerstitati sal and factious proceedings of the insurgents, who have opposed themselves to both.

1 See post. page