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erty destroyed, while the guerrilla parties were active in various parts of northern Missouri, from which section a large number of recruits were obtained for Price. About this time, Shelby crossed the river at Booneville, with 2,000 cavalry, and started on a circuit north and west.

After remaining some time in the vicinity of Jefferson City, on which he hesitated to make his threatened attack, Price had retired westward, destroying the La Mine bridge, on the Pacific railroad, and hovering about Booneville, in some of the carlier days of October, Gen. Sanborn harassing the enemy's flanks and rear. Jeff. Thompson defeated the militia garrison at Sedalia, and entered that town on the 16th of October. Price got possession of Lexington on the 17th. Curtis drove a Rebel force from Independence on the 16th, and advanced toward Lexington, while the forces of Rosecrans moved rapidly up from the East. Price quickly abandoned the latter place, and fell back toward the Kansas border, sending off his long wagon train toward the South-west, while his raiders in northern Missouri re-crossed the river. Price was defeated at the Little Blue River, on the 22d of October, and driven to the Big Blue. Shelby gained a temporary advantage at Westport, on the 23d, but was afterward beaten, on the same day, by our main army. On the 25th, Price was again attacked, on the Fort Scott road, and beaten with serious loss. Still more decisive victories were gained over him at Mine Creek, on the 26th, when his Generals, Marmaduke and Cabell, were captured, with a large number of their men; on the 27th, at Marais des Cygnes (in Kansas); and again at Newtonia on the 28th.

The invasion of Missouri was now at an end. The residue of Price's men-including the fresh recruits, whose departure was not disadvantageous to the peace and civilized order of the State-were but too glad to escape without a further contest.

With a grasp upon Georgia that could not be shaken off, with an utter dispersion of the invading expedition of Price in Missouri, with Mobile Bay commanded by our Navy, and with firm possession, despite occasional raids, of all the territory thus far regained west of the Alleghany range, the Pre

sident, in the early days of November, looked with gladdened sight upon a military situation portending a near approach of the end. With the taking of Atlanta-as the event has fully proved-all the Rebel territory between the Savannah and the Mississippi, embracing three of the most important Gulf States, had been practically conquered and reclaimed, as the result of the season's work. Texas was long since isolated. Arkansas was still held by Gen. Steele. The Mississippi river was not seriously obstructed by the persistent attempts to interrupt navigation on its waters. Tennessee could not be wrested from the firm hand of the military Governor, Andrew Johnson. Practically, the area of the Rebellion was now narrowed to the limits of the Carolinas and South-eastern Virginia, with the flash of loyal bayonets and the thunder of "Lincoln gunboats" all along the sea-board of each.

CHAPTER VII.

The Presidental Canvass of 1864 concluded.-Spirit of the Opposi tion. The North-western Conspiracy.-The Issue Concerning the Habeas Corpus and Military Arrests.-Letters of Mr. Lincoln on these Subjects.-Efforts of the Rebel Cabal in Canada to influence the Election. The State Elections of September and October.-The Voice of the Soldiers.-The Presidential Vote.-The President's Gratitude to the Army and Navy.-Maryland a Free State.-Mr. Lincoln's Speech to Marylanders.-Cipher Dispatches, and Schemes of the Canadian Cabal.-Affairs in Tennessee.-The Canvass in New York.

THE actual opening of the Presidential canvass was marked by the subsidence of all opposition to Mr. Lincoln within the Republican Union party. Those who had reluctantly come into his support, did not covet the position of leaders without any following. Those who had tested the futile scheme for bringing about his withdrawal, speedily learned that the people had no inclination for such trifling. Gen. Fremont, who had begged an instantaneous acceptance of his resignation as a Major-General, that he might use the more freedom in the letter of acceptance, which he was in haste to write, now (not too graciously) recalled that acceptance. Mr. Chase, hitherto, silently awaiting the turn of events, no longer hesitated to take the stump for Lincoln and Johnson. Radicals and Conservatives heartily united in the common cause, and all minor divisions were forgotten.

The Democratic National Convention, in its platform, as well as in its nominations, had shown a singular misapprehension of the strong current of loyal opinion. It pronounced the fatal words, "four years of failure to restore the Union by the experiment of war," which vexed the ears of the heroic soldiers and of the faithful citizens alike. More untimely and infatuated still, was the "demand that immediate efforts be made for the cessation of hostilities," at

the moment when our brave soldiers were entering Atlanta. Recreant leaders sealed the doom of their party on the moment of these strange utterances. Vain was McClellan's attempted change of base, in his letter of acceptance. Unavailing was l'endleton's abstinence of speech. There was nothing in the record of either, to their misfortune, that neutralized the effect of these significant words.

If by these grave mistakes, the Opposition had thrown itself into a hopelessly defensive attitude, scarcely less maladroit were its aggressive attempts. Issues were raised, so transparently false, as to offend the plainest common sense. Arbitrary arrests, interference with liberty of speech, ambitious despotism, and a general infraction of the Constitution, were resolutely charged upon Mr. Lincoln's administration. The people were told that their rights were recklessly trampled under foot. In fact, the Chicago Democratic platform-in anti-climatic eagerness-averred that "the Constitution itself has been disregarded in every part, and public liberty and private right alike trodden down, and the material prosperity of the country essentially impaired." By a curious infelicity, complaint was made of an alleged "direct interference of the military authority of the United States in the recent elections held in Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, and Delaware," coupled with a threat of resistance by force of arms. Was it supposed that the people had so soon forgotten the military interference of the Opposition candidate, in arresting a whole legislature in Maryland, and forcibly preventing the intended steps toward "sccession"? Or that this action-the brightest in his career -was heartily approved by public opinion throughout the country? To deny the right of preventing the consummation of plotted treason, was only to claim immunity for treason, itself. And such was, throughout, the spirit of this platform. It lamented restraints upon the liberties of traitors and their abettors; it arraigned the exercise of the war power, in meeting a war begun by rebels; it denounced the refusal of "the right of asylum" to a foreign slave-pirate; it grew indignant at "the employment of unusual test oaths," from which no loyal nerve ever suffered a twingle; and grieved over the strangely asserted

"denial of the right of the people to bear arms"-meaning the refusal of permission to a secret order of conspirators in Indiana, and elsewhere, which had already been exposed, to arm and organize in private for the direct coöperation with the Southern Rebel forces.*

It is not surprising that Thompson and Sanders, those arch Rebels "in the confidential employment" of Jefferson Davis in Canada, promptly telegraphed their agent in Halifax, on the conclusion of this Chicago conclave, in the following terms: "Platform and Vice President satisfactory; speeches very satisfactory." Subsequent disclosures throw a lurid glare over these historic words. Humiliating enough it certainly was, for men not utterly lost to all sense of loyalty, and to all love of country, to receive such an indorsement from known traitors; but from traitors plotting the unparalleled iniquities which time was crelong to reveal, what could be more lastingly iniquitous than this approbation? In this view, some of the "very satisfactory" speeches become too strangely significant to be passed over as they might otherwise deserve. The reports to be quoted from appeared in the Chicago Times, a party organ of the opposition, and the speeches were made by delegates, either actually in the Convention, or at popular meetings outside, on that occasion.

A delegate certainly not a "Senator" in Congress, as the reporter intimated; can it have been the identical Samuel S. Cox, of Ohio, who, two years before, when greatly in need of Republican votes to secure his election to Congress, called on his auditors in a strongly loyal county to give "three cheers for Abraham Lincoln"? A delegate to the Chicago Democratic National Convention was thus reported by the party organ on that occasion:

Senator Cox being introduced, said he did not want to use any harsh language toward Old Abe [cries of "give it to him"]. He had attempted in his own city, a few weeks since, to show, in a very quiet way, that Abraham Lincoln had deluged the country with blood, created a debt of four thou

For the Chicago Democratic Platform, entire, see page 578.

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