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of the fall of Fort Fisher, the last possible gateway of the Rebellion to British supplies. Public meetings were called in Richmond, and every means taken to inflame and prolong the spirit of opposition and war. In one of these Jefferson Davis said in a fiery speech: "I would be willing to yield up everything I have on earth, and if it were possible, would sacrifice my life a thousand times, before I would succumb." But all this bluster amounted to nothing. At that very moment the Rebellion was crumbling, and in less than two months he was a solitary fugitive.

The morning of the 4th of March, 1865, was dark, rainy, and cold, but the President, tired and gloomy, was at the Capitol signing bills, and doing all he could to give effect to the last work of Congress. The procession to escort him, according to custom, from the White House, moved without him. In the Senate Chamber Andrew Johnson had taken the oath of office as Vice-President, and delivered an address. The clouds had broken away, and as the tall, weary President stepped upon the eastern portico of the Capitol the sun burst upon his uncovered head amidst the shouts of the great concourse of eager and sympathetic spectators around him.

In a clear, but sad tone, he then delivered this brief and remarkable

INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

FELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,-At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office, there is less occasion for an extended address than there was at first. Then a statement of a course to be pursued seemed very fitting and proper.

Now, at the expiration of four years, during which public declarations have been constantly called forth on every point and phase of the great contest which still absorbs the attention and engrosses the energies of the Nation, little that is new could be presented.

The progress of our arms upon which all else chiefly depends, is as well known to the public as to myself, and it is, I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging to all. With high hopes for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured. On the occasion corresponding to this, four years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all sought to avoid it.

While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war; seeking to dissolve the Union and divide the effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish; and the war

came.

One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it.

These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union by war, while the Government claimed no right to more than restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding.

Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we may not be judged. The prayer of

both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses, for it must needs be that offenses come: but woe unto the man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of these offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him?

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

With malice toward no one, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 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 orphans, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

The religious tone of this address doubtlessly startled some of Mr. Lincoln's Western friends; and the air of sadness that pervaded it was not forgotten six weeks later when he had fallen beneath the assassin's hand. Coming events had cast their mystic shadow before. The circumstances had never existed previously in the history of this country to bring forth an inaugural address like this, nor would it have been possible for any of Mr. Lincoln's predecessors to produce such an address

even had the circumstances favored it. Mr. Lincoln's political and official speeches and papers have in them a directness, simplicity, and originality which render them entirely unique in the political literature of his age and country. They lacked some of the polish and glitter, to say nothing of the verbosity, displayed by many of the occupants of the Executive Chair, but if they lost anything in these respects they made up for it in more enduring and admirable qualities.

35

CHAPTER XXIV.

1864-WAR OF THE REBELLION-GRANT AND SHERMAN— END OF MISTAKES-ATLANTA CAMPAIGN-RESACAKENESAW MOUNTAIN — DALTON - ATLANTA — STONEMAN-FROM THE RAPIDAN TO PETERSBURG - THE WILDERNESS-COLD HARBOR-HOOD IN TENNESSEE— FRANKLIN-NASHVILLE SHERMAN BEGINS HIS WONDERFUL MARCH TO THE SEA.

H'

ERETOFORE it has been convenient and somewhat necessary to treat of military affairs separately on each side of the Alleghany Mountains; but early in the spring of 1864 an event took place rendering the continuance of this plan unimportant in the brief view which the comparative size these volumes has already reached compels me to take. This was the appointment of General Grant to command the entire army of the United States. The failure of the Army of the Potomac to make any great headway against the rebel force which opposed it, and the common lack of confidence in General Halleck, the General-in-Chief, gave rise to a strong demand for placing the direction of military concerns in other hands. In order to relieve the case of any difficulties and uncertainties, Congress revived the rank of Lieutenant-General which had been borne by General Washington only, and by General Scott by

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