Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 2.djvu/126

 30,620; while the losses of Lee’s army were about 19,500. In the West, during this period, the invasion of Kentucky by a confederate army under General Bragg, had ended with his defeat at Perryville by General Buell, and his expulsion. General Rosecrans had won brilliant victories at Iuka and Corinth in Mississippi, in which many Iowa regiments participated. The Union armies had been reënforced by 300,000 men furnished under the President’s last call. Up to the close of the year 1862 Iowa had raised and sent into the service, forty regiments of infantry, five regiments of cavalry, three batteries of artillery, comprising a total of 48,814 men. During the year twenty-six regiments of infantry and one of cavalry had entered the service from Iowa. The result of the conflict up to the beginning of the year 1863, had, on the whole, been such as to encourage the leaders of the Rebellion to anticipate final success for the Southern Confederacy. The Army of Virginia held its defiant position on the banks of the Rappahannock River, its ranks replenished by a rigid enforcement of the conscription acts of the Confederacy. The long series of victories, under the able command of General Robert E. Lee, had inspired a belief in the ranks that it was invulnerable. Our Government learned from confidential reports, through our ambassadors in Europe, that there was danger of foreign intervention on the part of several of the great powers, by a recognition of the Southern Confederacy. Promptly, on the 1st of January, President Lincoln issued his proclamation declaring all slaves in the rebellious States FREE, and that the Executive, the naval and the military authorities of the United States would recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons. He also declared that such persons of suitable condition, would be received into the military service of the United States. Far-seeing statesmen had long believed that the emancipation of the slaves and their employment in our armies would be the death blow to the Rebellion, and so it proved. From this time on the slave became our