blamed by Burnside; but he alleged ambiguous orders, and that he did not understand them. The main assault upon the heights of Fredericksburg, although most gallantly made, was repulsed with terrible slaughter. The works, and position of the enemy were too strong. It was a sad, and bloody day for the brave men, who had driven the enemy from the field at Antietam. It is difficult now to understand why the army should be led across a stream like the Rappahannock, and up to the assault of works, which the delay in the arrival of the pontoons had given Lee full time to construct. Why should not a flank movement have been made; such as was made again and again by Sherman and Grant, and thus force the enemy to deliver battle upon more equal ground? The position of Lee was very strong; he occupied a fortified ridge, the approach to which was swept by artillery. After holding the position in the town until the 15th, in the evening the army was withdrawn to Falmouth; and the morning of the 16th, saw General Burnside's army on the North bank, with a loss in killed, wounded, and missing, of about 12,321!

The armies of Burnside and Lee, now confronted each other on the banks of the Rappahannock. In reviewing the campaign of 1862, in the East, the result was upon the whole, favorable to the rebels. With a smaller force than the Union army, they had kept the army of the Potomac, all the Autumn and Winter of 1861-2, in the defences of Washington. They had blockaded the Potomac. They had, by the blunders and want of vigor in McClellan, repulsed him from Richmond. They had sent Jackson, swooping like an eagle, through the Valley of the Shenandoah, driving Banks across the Potomac, and then escaping from Fremont and McDowell. They had frightened McClellan away from Richmond, without ever once defeating his combined army; but on the contrary, his troops often defeated the rebels; yet the fruits of victory McClellan would never seize, but always, after knocking down the enemy, would call for reënforcements, or run away from him.

Then came the spirited and hard fought campaign of Pope, when, had McClellan obeyed orders, the armies of Burnside, Pope, and McClellan, would have been consolidated on the

field of Manassas, and crushed the smaller force of Lee; but McClellan's disobedience, and Fitz John Porter's treachery, led to the retreat on Washington.* Then came the rebel march into Maryland, and the battle of Antietam, which ought to have been a crushing defeat of the rebels, but which was upon the whole, an undecisive victory. Lee's 12,000 prisoners captured by Jackson at Harper's Ferry, was an offset or equivalent for his losses at South Mountain and Antietam. Then followed the long delays of McClellan-his removal— Burnside's campaign—closed by the slaughter of Fredericksburg. Such is the sad and gloomy picture of the war on the Atlantic in 1862.

Let us return to the West, where, as Pope said boastingly but truthfully, "the Union armies had been accustomed to see the backs of their enemy." This narrative is designed to exhibit the spirit of contending principles, and to follow the movements of armies, so far only as is incidental and necessary to exhibit the final triumph of freedom, and therefore, does not go fully into the details of the vast and varied movements west of the mountains.

The evacuation of Corinth by Beauregard, led to the separation of the armies of Grant and Buell. Grant advanced towards the South, to take and hold the military positions along the banks of the Mississippi, preparatory to the great work which he was destined to accomplish of reclaiming and opening the Mississippi. He was to lead the sons of the Northwest, who were "to hew their way to the sea."

Buell was to move towards Chattanooga, and attempt the too long delayed work of relieving the loyal people of East Tennessee. These people occupying the mountains, had few slaves, and were passionately devoted to the Union. Never were a people more cruelly persecuted, than the devoted Unionists of this mountain region. Conscripted into rebel armies, driven from their homes, their houses burned, their property destroyed, families outraged, they fled to the caves of the mountains, and organizing small bands, maintained a brave but unequal conflict for the flag they loved.

*"Had the army of the Potomac arrived a few days earlier, the rebel army would have been easily defeated." Halleck's Report, November, 1862.

Buell moved to the vicinity of Chattanooga, but he was forced back, and the rebels, under Bragg, entered Kentucky, and occupied Frankfort the Capital, Lexington, and other important positions. On the 18th of September, Bragg issued a proclamation, calling upon Kentucky to rally to his support. On the 4th of October, a " Provisional Government" was proclaimed by the rebels at Frankfort. Louisville and Cincinnati were threatened and fortified. On the 6th of October, Buell's troops reached Springfield, sixty miles from Louisville. On the 8th of October, was fought the battle of Perryville. A portion of Buell's army, under McCook, was attacked unexpectedly, and thrown into confusion, and retreated. Crittenden's forces coming up in the evening, the forces of Bragg retired. He succeeded in escaping with large supplies. Buell, on the 25th of Ocober, by order of the President, was superceded by General Rosecrans.

Previous to this, on the 26th of September, General Rosecrans was in command at Corinth. On the 4th of October, he was attacked by Price, on the right, and Van Dorn, on the left. For a moment, the attack of Van Dorn was so severe that the division of Davis fell back, but Rosecrans, in person rallying his men, and leading the Fifty-sixth Illinois to a bold bayonet charge, drove back and scattered the enemy with great havoc; other forces participating, the whole force of Van Dorn was repulsed with a loss of near 5,000 killed and wounded, and 2,265 prisoners. Rosecrans' whole loss did not exceed 2,357.

The stronghold of Vicksburg, strong by nature, and fortified with all the skill of the ablest engineers, was, as yet, an insurmountable obstacle to the complete recovery of the Mississippi. A movement against it was defeated by the disgraceful surrender of Holly Springs, by Colonel Murphy on the 20th of December, by which a vast amount of stores and supplies fell into the hands of the enemy.

Generals Sherman and McClernand organized a movement against Vicksburg, from Memphis and Cairo, which sailed on the 20th of December, and which arrived at Millikens Bend on the 24th, and destroyed a portion of the Vicksburg and Texas Railroad. On the 27th, the troops disembarked on the plantation of the late General Albert Sidney

Johnson, on the Yazoo River. They met the active and efficient cooperation of a gunboat fleet, under command of Commodore Ellett.

On the 29th, a general and gallant assault was made upon the defenses in the rear of Vicksburg, in which General F. P. Blair particularly distinguised himself, but the place was too strong, and too well defended; and the assault, though gallantly made, was repulsed with severe loss. The forces of General Sherman retired to Milliken's Bend, and went into camp at the beginning of the year 1863.

The results in the West, subsequent to May, 1862, were much less decisive for the Union cause than the brilliant record of the Fall, Winter and Spring of 1861-2. The campaign of 1862, was however crowned with the victory of Rosecrans over General Joseph E. Johnston, at Stone River.

In November, the rebel army was concentrated at Murfreesboro, and the Union army at Nashville. Johnston supposing the Union army would go into winter quarters at Nashville, detached his cavalry under Forrest, to cut the railroad in Grant's rear, and another body under Morgan, to go into Kentucky. Rosecrans determined to improve this opportunity to strike the enemy. On the 26th, he began to move upon the enemy. On the 31st, McCook, who had the right of Rosecrans' army, was attacked by a heavy force on his entire line. He was driven back by overwhelming numbers, and his force retreated with a loss of many prisone rs Rosecrans massed his artillery, and prepared for an attack on his left and centre by the rebels, sending Generals Negley and Rosseau, to the aid of 'McCook. This checked the rebel advance. As they were coming up the second time, Rosecrans, opened upon them his newly planted batteries, and after a short conflict, they turned and fled in confusion, leaving immense numbers of dead and wounded on the field. The rebels renewed the attack later in the day, and were again repulsed.

On the 4th of January, Johnston retreated to Murfreesboro. The Union loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was 11,578, and the rebel loss, 14,560.

CHAPTER XVII.

THIRD SESSION THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS.

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE DEC., 1862-PROPOSAL TO AID MISSOURI IN EMANCIPATION BILL AUTHORIZING ENROLLING COLORED TROOPS-ENROLLMENT BILL-DEBATE IN SENATE AND HOUSEBINGHAM-Cox-DUNN - THOMAS-SENATOR WILSON-MCDOUGALL-ADMISSION OF WEST VIRGINIA - DEBATE-MAYNARD-STEPHENS—BingHAM—THOMAS — ADMISSION OF MEMBERS FROM LOUISIANA-WAR POWERS OF THE GOVERNMENT ARBITRARY ARRESTS-VALLANDIGHAM LINCOLN'S REPLY TO ALBANY MEETING-HABEAS CORPUS-CLOSE OF THIRTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS-SPEAKER GROW'S VALIDICTORY.

THE action of the drama calls us again from the field of war to the forum of Congress; from the conflict of arms to the conflict of principles in the National council, and before the people. The tyranny over mind, which two centuries of slavery had riveted, was being broken, and the loyal people of the Nation had learned in the school of war, clearly to see that the unity of the Nation, with a homogeneous people, was a necessity to its grand destiny; and to secure that unity, slavery must be removed. Whatever the purposes of the administration at the beginning, the inexorable logic of war, was driving it to abolition. The Republic was based upon man's equality before the law. Slavery was an anomaly, inconsistent with the principles upon which the government was founded, and must either yield itself or overturn the Government. The war was a natural and perhaps inevitable conflict between the systems of free and slave labor. These truths gradually became more and more the settled convictions of the American people, and resulted in the proclamation of emancipation. The effect of this proclamation abroad, was sharply to define the issue between an established Government fighting for liberty,