Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/760

722 his violent public utterances in opposition to the war, tried by a military court, and sentenced to imprisonment during the continuance of the war. The president changed his sentence to that of transportation within the lines of the rebellion. These proceedings caused a great fer- ment among his party in Ohio, who, by way of chal- lenge to the gov- ernment, nomi- nated him for gov- ernor of that state. A committee of its prominent politi- cians demanded from the president his restoration to his political rights, and a correspond- ence took place be- tween them and the president, in which the rights and powers of the government in case of rebellion were set forth by him with great lucidity and force. His letters ex- ercised an important influence in the political dis- cussions of the year, and Mr. Vallandigham was defeated in his candidacy by John Brough by a majority of 100,000 votes.

The war still continued at a rate that appears rapid enough in retrospect, but seemed slow to the eager spirits watching its course. The disasters of the Army of the Potomac did not end with the removal of Gen. McClellan, which took place in November, 1862, as a consequence of his persistent delay in pursuing Lee's retreating army after the battle of Antietam. Gen. Burnside, who succeeded him, suffered a humiliating defeat in his attack upon the intrenched position of the Confederates at Fredericksburg. Gen. Hooker, who next took command, after opening his campaign by crossing the Rapidan in a march of extraordinary brilliancy, was defeated at Chancellorsville, in a battle where both sides lost severely, and then retired again north of the river. Gen. Lee, leaving the National army on his right flank, crossed the Potomac, and Hooker having, at his own request, been relieved and succeeded by Gen. Meade, the two armies met in a three days' battle at Gettysburg, Pa., where Gen. Lee sustained a decisive defeat, and was driven back into Virginia. His flight from Gettys- burg began on the evening of the 4th of July, a day that in this year doubled its lustre as a histor- ic anniversary. For on this day Vicksburg, the most important Confederate stronghold in the west, surrendered to Gen. Grant. He had spent the early months of 1863 in successive attempts to take that fortress, all of which had failed ; but on the last day of April he crossed the river at Grand Gulf, and within a few days fought the successful battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Cham- pion Hills, and the Big Black river, and shut up the army of Pemberton in close siege in the city of Vicksburg, which he finally captured with about 30,000 men on the 4th of July.

The speech that Mr. Lincoln delivered at the dedication of the National cemetery on the battle- field of Gettysburg, 19 Nov., 1863, was at once recognized as the philosophy in brief of the whole great struggle, and has already become classic. There are slightly differing versions; the one that is here given is a literal transcript of the speech as he afterward wrote it out for a fair in Baltimore :

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposi- tion 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 dedicat- ed, can long endure. We are met on a great bat- tle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate 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 can- not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it* far above our poor 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 dedicat- ed 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 government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Gen. Grant was transferred to Chattanooga, where, in November, with the troops of Thomas, Hooker, and Sherman, he won the important vic- tory of Missionary Ridge; and then, being ap- pointed lieutenant-general and general-in-chief of the armies of the United States, he went to Wash- ington and entered upon the memorable campaign of 1864. This campaign began with revived hopes on the part of the government, the people, and the army. The president, glad that the army had now at its head a general in whose ability and enterprise he could thoroughly confide, ceased from that moment to exercise any active influence on its movements. He wrote, on 30 April, to Gen. Grant : " The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. ... If there is anything wanting which is in my power to give, do not fail to let me know it. And now, with a brave army and a just cause, may God sustain you." Grant crossed the Rapidan on 4 May, intending to move by the right flank of Gen. Lee ; but the two armies came together in a gloomy forest called the Wilderness, where, from the 5th to the 7th of May, one of the most sanguinary battles known to modern warfare was fought. Neither side having gained any decisive advantage in this deadly struggle, Grant moved to the left, and Lee met him again at Spottsylvania Court- House, where for ten days a series of destructive contests took place, in which both sides were alter- nately successful Still moving to the left, Grant again encountered the enemy at the crossing of North Anna river, and still later at Cold Har- bor, a few miles northeast of Richmond, where, assaulting Gen. Lee's army in a fortified position, he met with a bloodv repulse. He then crossed the James river, intending by a rapid movement to seize Petersburg and the Confederate lines of com- munication south of Richmond, but was baffled in this purpose, and forced to enter upon a regular siege of Petersburg, which occupied the summer