LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. 



475 



by the insurrectionists ; the troops of our regu- 

 lar army deprived of their arms and sent home, 

 by slow and devious routes, as paroled pris- 

 oners; the garrison of Fort Sumter was draw- 

 ing nigh the point of starvation, and no supplies 

 could be sent them except by running the fire 

 of batteries. The attempt was made by a mer- 

 . chant vessel, but she was fired upon, and with- 

 /out waiting the surrender, which could not 

 have been long delayed, the rebel leaders chose 

 to bombard the fort, and take possession of it 

 after a thirty- three hours' siege, on the 14th of 

 April. 



Then came the necessity of at once calling 

 the nation to arms, and on the 15th of April 

 the call for 75,000 men roused the people to the 

 struggle which for four years to come was to 

 task their energies and try their patience. The 

 response from every Northern State was cordial, 

 prompt, and earnest. Men and means were 

 pressed upon the Government in abundance. 

 Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware, and 

 Virginia hung back, and some of them answered 

 the call with insolent threats and defiance. Vir- 

 ginia soon after went over to the rebels ; the 

 Governor of Missouri, foiled in his efforts to take 

 his State in the same direction, fled from it, 

 and loyal officers took his place ; Mary- 

 land, held in military possession, took up the 

 national cause, and finally emancipated her 

 slaves; Delaware, halting long between two 

 opinions, at length raised troops for the 

 Union ; and Kentucky, attempting neutral- 

 ity, found herself neutral only as the battle- 

 field and plunder-ground of the contending 

 armies. An extra session of Congress had been 

 called for July 4th. On the 19th of April the 

 ports of the seceded States were declared under 

 blockade. Washington, at first in extreme 

 peril, was, not without bloodshed, soon strongly 

 garrisoned. The President long cherished the 

 hope that the war would be but brief, and that 

 soon peace and union as of old would be re- 

 stored. The battle of Bull Eun dispelled in 

 part this illusion; the nation began to harness 

 itself for the work before it, and during the 

 autumn and winter of 1861-'62 the President 

 was heavily burdened with the cares and re- 

 sponsibilities so suddenly thrown upon him; 

 finance, the raising and maintaining great ar- 

 mies throughout the country, settling the diffi- 

 cult Trent case, and adjusting temporarily the 

 serious and delicate questions connected with 

 slavery which were constantly arising, under 

 the movements of Butler, Fremont, and other 

 of the army commanders. 



The year 1862, though cheered by some vic- 

 tories like those of Thomas, at Mill Spring, the 

 grand forward movements of Halleck, Grant, 

 and Buell through Kentucky and Tennessee, 

 the capture of Island No. Ten and Memphis, 

 of New Orleans and its guarding forts, of Beau- 

 fort and Port Royal, of Roanoke Island and 

 Newbern, was on the whole one of gloom and 

 anxiety for the President. But the dawn of 

 the new year brought altered prospects. He 



had, after long and anxious deliberation, come 

 to believe in the necessity of the proclamation 

 of emancipation as a war measure, and the 

 first day of the new year saw liberty pro- 

 claimed to all the slaves of the rebellious States. 

 The victory of Stone River, the capture of 

 Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and the opening 

 of the Mississippi, the substantial exclusion of 

 the rebels from Missouri and Arkansas, the 

 redemption of Tennessee, were all so many 

 positive gains ; while the disaster of Chancellors- 

 ville was more than redeemed by the glorious 

 though bloody victory of Gettysburg, and the 

 misfortunes of Chickamauga alleviated by the 

 triumphant successes of Chattanooga. "Peace," 

 said the President, reviewing these achievements 

 of our armies, " does not look so distant as it 

 did." He had anxiously sought for two years 

 to bring the border States into the adoption of 

 a system of emancipation, more or less gradual ; 

 and he was rewarded by the adoption of an 

 emancipation constitution in the new State of 

 West Virginia, and the emancipation of their 

 slaves by Missouri and Maryland, while Con- 

 gress abolished slavery in the District of Co- 

 lumbia, forbade it in all the territories, and 

 struck from the statute-books the fugitive slave 

 laws. 



The arrest of persons guilty of alleged trea- 

 sonable acts or words, which, though not made 

 in all cases by his order, he could not but sanc- 

 tion, occasioned some animadversions, and was 

 explained by him in two lucid and able let- 

 ters to the New York and Ohio committees 

 who had addressed him on the subject. In 

 1864, the first few months of the year were 

 rendered anxious by financial difficulties, the 

 rapid depreciation of the national currency, the 

 resignation of Secretary Chase, and the ap- 

 pointment of Mr. Fessenden. Then began in 

 May those movements unequalled in the his- 

 tory of modern times, by which, in less than 

 a twelvemonth, the rebellion was crushed 

 Grant's great campaign, where each day's 

 slaughter was almost that of an army, but ia 

 which, with a wonderful endurance and per- 

 sistency, he held his adversary, till at last ho 

 yielded ; that unparalleled march of a thousand 

 miles, by which Sherman, making pauses only 

 at Atlanta, at Savannah, and at Goldsboro,' 

 swept as with a besom of destruction through 

 the hostile territory, and at last brought his foo 

 to surrender; and that wisely-planned retreat 

 oof Thomas on Nashville, and his subsequent 

 hurling of his troops upon the foe, pursuing 

 them till they were scattered and broken. 



Meantime Mr. Lincoln had been, by a respect- 

 able majority in the popular vote, and a great 

 majority in the electoral college, called for a sec- 

 ond term to the Presidential chair, inaugurated 

 amid the acclamations of thousands ; though 

 still not without some threats of assassination, 

 he seemed about entering upon more halcybn 

 days. Richmond and Petersburg had been evac- 

 uated, and his own feet had trodden the pave- 

 ments of the late Confederate capital ; Lee had 



