work we are in to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves." SUMMARY. 1861. The Civil War began with the capture of Fort Sumter. The Union forces were defeated at Bull Run. The capture of the Confederate commissioners on the Trent nearly made trouble with England. 1862. The Union forces capture New Orleans. The contest between the Monitor and the Merrimac took place. Jackson swept the Shenandoah Valley. McClellan failed to reach Richmond, and Lee withdrew from Antietam. 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation was signed. The Alabama did much damage to Union ships. The Confederates were victorious at Chancellorsville, but Lee was repulsed at Gettysburg. The Union forces gained control of the Mississippi by the capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. The Confederates were successful at Chickamauga. 1864. Grant pressed on to Petersburg. Early had burned Chambersburg, and to prevent such raids Sheridan devastated the Shenandoah Valley. Sherman marched through Georgia to Savannah. 1865. Lee was forced to abandon Richmond, and to surrender at Appomattox Court House April 9th. Four years from the day when Fort Sumter fell President Lincoln was assassinated. SUGGESTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK. A soldier writes about the attack upon Fort Sumter. A boy describes the siege of Vicksburg. Two sailors on the Minnesota discuss the possible coming of the Monitor. XXII THE LATTER YEARS OF THE CENTURY AFTER the war, the government had to decide a difficult ques of the seceded states tion. This was, "Will it be safe to allow the states that wished The position to leave the Union to send representatives to Congress and help make the laws for the country?" Lincoln's belief was, "No state canleave the Union. Some persons have raised an insurrec tion, but this has THE WHITE HOUSE (The official residence of the President as it appears to-day. The been suppressed. These states as states have not forfeited their When Lincoln died, the Vice-President, Andrew Johnson, became president. His belief was almost the same as Lincoln's, but Andrew Johnson where Lincoln would persuade men, Johnson would try to compel them, and all through his term of office there were quarrels between him and Congress, and many of the laws made at that time were made not with the President's consent, but in spite of his opposition. An addition was made to the Constitution which is known as The Thirteenth the Thirteenth Amendment. It forbids slavery in the United Amendment States or in any place governed by the United States. A law Carpetbaggers The negro vote was passed requiring every man who wished to hold office in the South to take what was called the "iron-clad oath," declaring that he had taken no part in the war. This was an unwise demand, for almost every respectable man in the seceding states had taken part in the war; and the result of the act was that worthless men from the North persuaded or bribed the negroes to vote them into office. These men were called "carpet-baggers," because they usually had no property, and often no baggage except a carpet-bag. For a considerable time the northern adventurers and the ignorant negroes were in power in the South. THE GREAT EASTERN LAYING THE ATLANTIC CABLE In order to send representatives to Congress, the Confederate states had been obliged by the government to grant the negroes the right to vote; but it was not long before the whites had the power in their own hands again, for in many places they would either frighten the negroes or bribe them, and so keep them away from the polls. United States troops were then sent South to protect the negroes in their right to vote and to support the men who had been lawfully elected; but the soldiers did not like this duty, the whites were angry, and the negroes often suffered more than before the troops came. Matters were made a little better by the pardoning of those Confederates who had taken part in the war, and restoring to nearly all the right to hold office. Though there are even now some hard questions to settle about the negroes, it is probable that very few men in our country, even in the South, would be willing to have the days of slavery return. cable In 1866, while Johnson was still in office, Europe and America came nearer together. It took Columbus ten weeks to cross the The Atlantic Atlantic. The Pilgrims spent nine weeks in sailing from England to Massachusetts. In 1812, even a swift sailing vessel needed a month. Before the Civil War, the invention of steamboats had made it possible to send a message from England to America in ten or eleven days. A persevering man named Cyrus W. Field was now convinced that a telegraph wire might be laid across the Atlantic Ocean. The first attempt failed, the second failed, the third time all went well, but in a few days the cable broke. Field's money was gone, and his friends had no more that they wished to invest. At last Congress voted to help him. This time the cable succeeded. The wire was laid from Ireland to Newfoundland, and instead of the New World and the Old being ten weeks apart, whatever was done in one continent could be known in the other in a very few minutes. Whittier wrote of this new wonder: "And round the world the thought of all Is as the thought of one." So it was that in Johnson's time the Atlantic grew narrower; but at the same time the United States grew wider, for Alaska was bought of Russia. Every time that the country has bought a piece of land, Photograph by W. H. Partridge SITKA, ALASKA there have been citizens who opposed the purchase for one reason The purchase of or another; and when Alaska was bought, some declared that it Alaska was a foolish, extravagant deed, that the country could "keep The Alabama claims house" without a "refrigerator." This "refrigerator," however, is just the place for fur-bearing animals, and in a few years the fur companies had paid for the right to collect furs much more than Alaska had cost. The recent discovery of gold in the Klondike district of Alaska has greatly increased the value of this possession. Few were pleased with Johnson's management, and in 1868 General Grant was elected to succeed him. While Grant was in office, an important war question was settled in regard to the "Alabama claims," whether or not England ought to pay for the damage that the Alabama and other privateers built in that country had done to American shipping. For less cause than this, nations have fought long and bloody wars, but both countries agreed that the matter should be left to five men who would not favor either party. The men met at Geneva in Switzerland. They decided that England should not have allowed the boats to be built, and that she must pay to the United States Travel in the joined together. Gold and silver had been found east of the far West Rocky Mountains. Emigrants were going westward by thousands. There were railroads as far as the Missouri, but no regular way of sending letters or goods from the Missouri to the "far |