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But freedom was not enough. Many of the black men had faithfully served the Union. Nearly two hundred thousand. of them were in the ranks, fighting manfully in a cause which was specially their own. There were many black men, as Lincoln said, who "could remember that, with silent tongue and clenched teeth and steady eye and wellpoised bayonet, they had helped mankind to save liberty in America." But the colored race was child-like and helpless. They had to be looked upon as "the wards of the nation." A Freedmen's Bureau was established, to be the defence of the defenceless blacks. General Howard, a man peculiarly fitted to give wise effect to the kind purposes of the nation, became the head of this department. It was his duty to provide food and shelter for the slaves who were set free by military operations in the revolted States. He settled them, as he could, on confiscated lands. After a time he had to see to the education of their children. In all needful ways he was to keep the negroes from wrong till they were able to keep themselves.

Four years had now passed since Lincoln's election furnished the slave-owners with a pretext to rebel. Another election had to be held. Lincoln was again proposed as the Republican candidate. The Democratic party nominated McClellan. Mr. Lincoln was re-elected by the largest majority ever known. "It is not in my nature," he said, “to triumph over any one; but I give thanks to Almighty God for this evidence of the people's resolution to stand by free government and the rights of humanity.”

He was inaugurated according to the usual form. His address was brief, but high-toned and solemn, as beseemed the circumstances. Perhaps no State paper ever produced so deep an impression upon the American people. It closed thus: "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 bondsman'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 towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us 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 a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

During the winter months it became very plain that the Confederacy was tottering to its fall. These were the bitterest months through which Virginia had ever passed. The army was habitually now on short supply. Occasionally, for a day, there was almost a total absence of food. One day in December, Lee telegraphed to Richmond that his army was without meat, and dependent on a little bread. And yet the soldiers were greatly better off than the citizens. Provisions were seized for the army wherever they could be found, and the owners were mercilessly left to starve. The suffering endured among the once cheerful homes of Virginia was terrible.

Every grown man was the property of the government. It was said the rich men escaped easily. But a poor man could not pass along a street in Richmond without imminent risk of being seized and sent down to the lines at Petersburg. At railroad stations might be constantly seen groups of squalid men on their way to camp, caught up from their homes and hurried off to fight for a cause which they all knew to be desperate, in the service of a government which they no longer trusted. It was, of course, the

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Wreck of the Confederacy.

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earliest care of these men to desert. They went home. They surrendered to the enemy. The spirit which made the Confederacy formidable no longer survived.

General Lee had long before expressed his belief that without the help of the slaves the war must end disastrously. But all men knew that a slave who had been a soldier could be a slave no longer. The owners were not prepared to free their slaves, and they refused therefore to arm them. In November, with utter ruin impending, a bill was introduced into the Confederate Congress for arming two hundred thousand negroes. It was debated till the following March. Then a feeble compromise was passed, merely giving the President power to accept such slaves as were offered to him. So inflexibly resolute were the leaders of the South in their hostility to Emancipation. It was wholly unimportant. At that time government could have armed only another five thousand men; and could not feed the men it had.

The finances of the Confederacy were an utter wreck. Government itself sold specie at the rate of one gold dollar for sixty dollars in paper money. Mr. Davis, by a measure of partial repudiation, relieved himself for a short space from some of his embarrassments. But no device would gain public confidence for the currency of a falling power. A loaf of bread cost three dollars. It took a month's pay to buy the soldier a pair of stockings. The misery of the country was deep, abject, unutterable. President Davis came to be regarded by many with abhorrence, as the cause. of all this wretchedness. Curses, growing ever deeper and louder, were breathed against the unsuccessful chief.

General Grant, well aware of the desperate condition of the Confederates, pressed incessantly upon their enfeebled lines. He had one hundred and sixty thousand men under his command. Sheridan joined him with a magnificent

Its

force of cavalry. Sherman with his victorious army was near. Grant began to fear that Lee would take to flight, and keep the Rebellion alive on other fields. A general movement of all the forces around Richmond was decided upon. Lee struggled bravely, but in vain, against overwhelming numbers. His right was assailed by Sheridan, and driven back with heavy loss,― five thousand hungry and disheartened men laying down their arms. On that same night Grant opened, from all his guns, a terrific and prolonged bombardment. At dawn the assault was made. strength was directed against one of the Confederate forts. The fight ceased elsewhere, and the armies looked on. There was a steady advance of the blue-coated lines; a murderous volley from the little garrison; wild cheers from the excited spectators. Under a heavy fire of artillery and musketry the soldiers of the Union rush on; they swarm into the ditch and up the sides of the works. Those who first reach the summit fall back slain by musket-shot or bayonet-thrust. But others press fiercely on. Soon their exulting cheers tell that the fort is won. Lee's army is cut in two. His position is no longer tenable. He telegraphed at once to President Davis that Richmond must be evacuated.

It was Communion Sunday in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and President Davis was in his pew among the other worshippers. No intelligence from the army had been allowed to reach the public for some days.

But the sound

of Grant's guns had been heard, and the reserve of the government was ominous. Many a keen eye sought to gather from the aspect of the President some forecast of the future. In vain. That serene, self-possessed face had lost nothing of its habitual reticence. In all that congregation there was no worshipper who seemed less encumbered by the world, more absorbed by the sacred employment of