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386 In addition to these elements of discord, there was a large, influential, powerful, and wealthy anti-war party, composed of people who were, and always had been, opposed to the war, and who numbered among them many who were not only opposed to the war, but who were warm and earnest friends of the South. These latter believed that the government had no right to coerce States which desired to leave the Union to remain in it, and they were bitterly antagonistic to any and all attempts to subjugate the South, and did everything in their power to baffle the efforts of the government to carry on the war efficiently. These people constantly aided, with their money and their influence, the Confederate agents who were working and scheming for the advancement of their cause at the North, and did a great deal to embarrass the Federal government.

Besides these, there were a great number of weak-kneed, or indifferent people, who had no opinions of their own worth speaking of, and whose chief anxiety was to be on the winning side. These were for the war or against it, as the tide of battle turned in favor of the Federals or the Confederates. The news of a tremendous defeat inflicted on the Confederates, or of the capture of an important position, would excite their enthusiasm, and make them talk loudly of fighting the thing out until the rebels were whipped ; while a season of prolonged inactivity, or a succession of Confederate victories, caused them to look gloomily on the situation, and to suggest that there had been about enough fighting, that it was about time prices were coming down a little, and that as the war had been going on so long, without any practical results, there was not much use in killing more men and spending more money, when there was no more chance this year than there was last of a speedy end to the contest. In this class the Confederates found many allies. At the time of my arrival at the North the anti-war party was concentrating its strength for the approaching presidential campaign, and many men who were prominent in it were decidedly confident that the next election would place a president in the White' House, whose views about the proper policy to be pursued towards the South would be radically different from those of Mr. Lincoln. If an anti-war president