CHAPTER V.

There was not the slightest attention given to the proclamation, neither was it expected that there would be. The one hundred days expired on the first day of January, 1863, and on that day President Lincoln issued the proclamation of which he had given previous notice. In the proclamation the President pointed out the States and parts of States in which it should take effect. By that proclamation about three millions of slaves were made free. Simultaneous with its publication came the victory to the Union arms at Stone's River, and a general advance on the rebels east and west. From that time forward the Union forces were victorious in almost every engagement. As midsummer approached, the military operations in the west were chiefly concentrated on Vicksburg as the key to the navigation of the Mississippi river. The rebel forces in Virginia, under General Lee, commenced the invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania in June. They were opposed by the army of the Potomac, under General Hooker. While the two armies were running a race across the State of Maryland, Gen. Hooker was relieved and Gen. Meade placed in command. The two armies came into collision at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the first of July. The battle raged with teriffic fury for three days. On the night of the third it was evident that the rebels were defeated. President Lincoln announced the fact on the Fourth by a dispatch sent over the whole country under control of the government. He alluded to the fact that it was the aniversary of the Declaration

of Independence, and closed by the invocation, that: "He whose will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remembered and renewed with profoundest gratitude." This was only half the, work for the glorious day. On that day the entire rebel force at Vicksburg, amounting to about thirty thousand men, 200 cannon, and 70,000 stand of small arms, under Gen. Pemberton, surrendered to Gen. Grant. The reconsecration of the Fourth of July to freedom was most grand, and inspired the loyal people of the nation with new courage to press forward to the task of crushing the rebellion.

The State of Pennsylvania purchased a piece of land adjoining the cemetery of the town, where much of the fighting had been done, among broken monuments and tombs, and over the graves of those who had died and been buried in peaceful times, and set it apart as a burying ground for the loyal soldiers who had there yielded up their lives a willing sacrifice on the altar of freedom. The ground was dedicated on the 19th of November, 1863, by an oration from the Hon. Edward Everett, in the presence of Mr. Lincoln and his cabinet, and a large concourse of people assembled to take part in the exercises. After the oration by Mr. Everett, the President delivered a brief address from which I take an extract:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedi. cate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The

world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they, who fought here, have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that, from these honored dead, we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

During the latter part of 1863, the success of the Union arms almost everywhere was so grand that the President issued one proclamation after another, calling on the people to assemble in their places of worship and offer up thanks to Almighty God. He called upon the people to honor and reverence God for the success at Gettysburg, himself publicly thanked Almighty God for the fall of Vicksburg, and on the fifteenth of July issued a proclamation setting apart the sixth of August to be observed as a day for national thanksgiving, praise and prayer, inviting the people to render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things he had done in the nation's behalf, and to invoke the influences of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which had produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insurgents; to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national and to visit with tender care and emergency, consolation, through the length and breadth of our land, all those who, through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles and seiges, had been brought to suffer in mind, body or estate; and, finally, to lead the whole nation through paths of repentance and submission to the Divine Will, back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace.

On the third of October he issued another proclamation of thanksgiving, setting apart the last Thursday of November as the day to be observed. This latter was more in the nature of an annual thanksgiving. But having heard of the retreat of the rebel forces from East Tennessee, he issued a dispatch on the seventh of December recommending all loyal people, on the receipt of the information, to assemble at their places of worship and render special homage and gratitude to Almighty God for this great advancement of the national cause.

The beginning of 1864 found the financial difficulties of the country most formidable, as the national currency had so far depreciated that it required $280 in currency to buy $100 in gold. Secretary Chase, of the Treasury department, resigned the position, and was followed by Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, as his successor. In May, General Grant commenced his campaign in Virginia, where each day's slaughter was almost equal to an army, and Sherman, at the same time, moved against the rebels, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, into Georgia. This was the commencement of his march of a thousand miles to the sea, making pauses only at Atlanta, reaching the sea at Savannah, thence north to Goldsboro he swept as with a besom of destruction through the rebel territory, and at last brought their forces to surrender after almost a year of continuous marching and fighting. After General Sherman left Atlanta, General Thomas skillfully planned his retreat on Nashville, and then hurled his troops against the rebel forces under Hood, at Franklin and Nashville, by which that part of the rebel army was almost annihilated.

During this whole year the Union forces were victorious on almost every battle-field. Notwithstanding the rebel armies were shattered and broken, they still hoped for a favorable turn to their cause by the defeat of Mr. Lincoln in the Presidential election then pending.

The Republican National Convention assembled in the city of Baltimore on the eighth of June, 1864, for the purpose of nominating candidates for President and Vice President of the United States. Mr. Lincoln was in the fourth year of his presidential term, during which time call after call and draft after draft had been made to keep up the strength of the army. He had found it necessary to remove hundreds of army officers high in command, he had given freedom to more than three million of slaves who were regarded as property when he entered the Presidential chair, and in all these transactions he had displeased a large number of influential citizens, which it was thought would make him many enemies. But when the Convention assembled, and after adopting a platform of principles, the next thing in order was to ballot for a Presidential candidate. On the first ballot every vote was given for Mr. Lincoln, except twentytwo from Missouri, which, under instructions, were given for General Grant. On motion of one of the Missouri delegates the nomination was made unaniAndrew Johnson of Tennessee was nominated for Vice President. Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio was the President of the Convention, and he, accompanied by a committee, waited upon Mr. Lincoln, informed him of his nomination, and placed in his hands a copy of the platform which had been adopted. Mr. Lincoln replied:

mous.

"Having served four years in the depths of a great and yet unended national peril, I can view this call to a second term in nowise more flattering to myself than as an expression of the public judgment that I may better finish a difficult work in which I have labored from the first, than could any one less severely schooled to the task. In this view, and with assured reliance on that Almighty Ruler who has so graciously sustained us thus far, and with increased gratitude to the generous people for their continued confidence, I accept the renewed trust with its yet onerous and perplexing duties and responsibilities.”