Eight-inch columbiad, cast of Alabama iron at Selina, 1863, used in the defence of Spanish Fort, Mobile Bay. Now erected as a monument in New Orleans.

reëlected. He received the vote of every Northern State except Delaware, Kentucky, and New Jersey. The election came at a time when the idea prevailed that a vote for the war party would complete the exhaustion of the prostrate Confederacy, and that a vote for McClellan would inspire the South to renewed exertions in the hope of favorable terms of peace. Expediency was triumphant. The South fought on, but with the knowledge that the end

was near.

CHAPTER XIX

THE END OF THE WAR

NEVER in the history of the world had there been such immense destruction of life and property as had been inflicted upon the South during the year 1864, and its effect was speedily seen in the exhausted condition of the country at the beginning of 1865. The diminution of food supplies, already rapid, was hastened incalculably by the conquests of the army of invasion during the year just passed, and much more by the wilful destruction of food and every other form of property whose removal was considered a means of crushing the ability of the Southern people to resist. There was a general distress for want of food, and even without another battle the South must have submitted during the year, starved into submission. At one time in the spring of 1864 there had been in Richmond but two days' rations for Lee's army. Crops that year in Virginia were short, and these were in large part destroyed by the Federal army. In November, 1864, there were in Richmond requisitions for 30,000,000 rations which could not be supplied, and the commissary-general reported to President Davis that the situation was growing worse. Every State was exhausted and without food. In the entire Confederacy there were meat rations barely sufficient for the army for a period of twenty-five days, and the winter had just begun. On December 5th Lee's army had but nine days' rations in sight, and on the 14th they were without meat.