CHAPTER XXIII

THE FOUR LONG YEARS

STILL under the blight of the worst war the world has ever known it is difficult for us who live today to realize that Abraham Lincoln, through all those crucial years which we have been describing, was making ready for a task as much bigger than any which had gone before as the World War out-classes all other wars of history. The soul as well as mind had to be prepared; for they were brothers who fought against each other in the Civil War. Besides mental and military efficiency there were needful prayer and faith and love. Victory in arms had to be followed, if there was to be a re-united country, by Christian magnanimity.

It has been worth while to trace in some detail the spiritual growth of Lincoln, if only to realize that it took a man of God to keep through all those dreadful years a spirit sweet and wholesome, finding just before he died expression in his purpose: "to strive on to finish the work we are in; to

bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle; and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

What was the work to which Lincoln brought in 1861 a soul as Christian as his mind was clear and fertile? In the actual service the one side had some 2,778,304 men; the other 700,000 men operating to advantage on interior lines and always near the base of their supplies. The North lost all told about 500,000 men. The Southern loss in its totality is more difficult to estimate, but was at least 133,821. The twenty-two States that proved loyal to the Union had a population of 22,000,000; the seceding States included 5,500,000 whites and 4,600,000 blacks. Of her population the North furnished for potential use in the ranks 4,600,000 soldiers or 45 per cent. of her fighting population, the South 1,150,000 or 90 per cent. of her fighting men.' In material resources, manufactures, transportation facilities, the balance was favourable to the North. Precisely because of this preponderance of strength, the North had to be led by a man of God in order

These statistics are in general familiar to students. The article in the Encyclopedia Britannica supplements them.

to win victories without bitterness; to reconstruct without retaliation.

Until the last Lincoln hoped that war might be averted or at least snuffed out at the beginning. But the shot fired on Sumter was heard in New England, which Butler had accurately predicted would be solid for the Union; in the Northwest, which the South was sure, against the facts, would be so slow in coming in at all that secession would meanwhile grow into a hard reality; even in California, which both North and South mistakenly believed would remain neutral. The Border States were naturally divided, but Lincoln's policy of firmness mingled with unbroken patience saved Delaware and Missouri outright, ensured the carving at the proper time of West Virginia out of old Virginia, and made Maryland and Kentucky minister with considerable consistency to the support of the undivided Union.

Before the war was three months old, Lincoln was able in sincerity and confidence to exhort: "Let us renew our trust in God and go forward, without fear, and with manly hearts." He called for 75,000 volunteers; almost four times as many answered, forerunners of the myriads later to respond: "We are coming, Father Abraham." The too hastily improvised battle of Bull Run

turned into a disgraceful retreat back to Washington. But the first year ended with the North settling grimly down to the big work on land and sea, the 3000 miles of Southern coast in large part blockaded, Southern commerce strangled, save for isolated privateers, and Hatteras and Port Royal both in Northern hands.

With the opening of 1862 preparations began on a gigantic scale for the complete conquest of the South. On the one side McClellan and on the other Joseph E. Johnston were training to the finest point such fighting men as had never shed each other's blood before. Spring found Forts Henry and Donelson in the hands of Grant, and Shiloh, at first apparently a drawn battle, ended in the death of the gallant Albert Sidney Johnston and the headlong flight of Beauregard, still proudly mindful of Bull Run. Then Stonewall Jackson swept up the valley of Virginia, scattering on either hand Frémont, Banks, McDowell, making for himself a reputation to outlast all time, opening the way for the noble Lee to come into his own as Southern chief par excellence, and helping rob the painstaking McClellan of the golden fruits of what seemed for a time like victories, but turned to ashes in his hands as midsummer found him foiled in reaching Richmond, though this was his second trial.

For a time Tennessee appeared to be the centre of the war, and Rosecrans deserved the great victory he won at Corinth. Then as autumn opened, Pope and Buell were in ill-repute, and Lee, encouraged by his success at Second Bull Run, crossed over into Maryland, to be checked at Antietam by McClellan, and unwittingly to furnish the occasion Lincoln had awaited to announce the Emancipation Proclamation.

When the winter opened, the North began that general offensive which was maintained in spite of some reverses till the end of 1865. McClellan, curiously unable to use with despatch the magnificent army he had wonderfully trained, saw Lincoln, after quaintly suggesting he would like to borrow it, try man after man who could fight as well as plan and drill, march and countermarch. Burnside, excellent in charge of a division, lost Fredericksburg in December, and was replaced by Hooker, able but too talkative, who won no spurs the next spring at Chancellorsville, where Jackson got his mortal wound. With Lee well upon the way to water his horses in the Delaware, Lincoln sent the scholarly Meade to check him in July at Gettysburg, where, as at Antietam, the fatal failure to follow up Lee in retreat prolonged the war.