support if the Southern army were present to support it. The fact was that the Copperheads were no fighters; they took it out in talk; they would never help anybody. But the confederates counted on them and on New York City. And so, General Lee with the best army that the South had, crossed the Potomac and marched into Pennsylvania.

Then the whole North awoke and shook itself in its wrath. The draft was almost popular. The weary eyes of the President lightened as the military movements on the Mississippi brightened the dark sky with hope. And his waiting ears caught the sound, all over the North, of men marching to swell the army of the Union and singing as they marched:

"We're coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,

From Mississippi's winding stream, and from New England's shore!"

XXXV.

GENERAL GRANT AT VICKSBURG.

In the May of 1861, at about the same time that McClellan was created a general of the army of the Potomac, there was a little man whose home was at Galena, Illinois, but who had been serving on the staff of the Governor of Illinois, helping to organize the State militia. He had been educated at the military school at West Point, as had McClellan, and also he had been in the Mexican war, as McClellan had been. At first offers of a position in the army had been declined by this little man from Galena. But when the President called for one hundred and fifty thousand soldiers, this modest man from Lincoln's own State wrote to the war department at Washington that he had served fifteen years in the regular army, four of these at West Point, and he offered his services to the government to the close of the war in any capacity that might be offered him; and he added

that he felt himself competent to command a regiment "if the President in his judgment should see fit to intrust me with one." He added that he was still serving on the Governor's staff, and that a letter addressed to him at Springfield would reach him.

This modest little man who held himself capable of commanding a regiment was Ulysses S. Grant, a general who blazed a track to victory through the woods of difficulty, destined to be Lincoln's final choice to command the armies of the Union, the coming man whom the country and all the world would honor.

He got his appointment. He telegraphed back: "I accept the regiment and will start immediately." The regiment given to him was a set of insubordinate men whom nobody else could do anything with and whom most of the officers were afraid of. As soon as he arrived, "travel-stained, ununiformed, with a large bandana tied outside the waist of his sack-coat for a sash," say Nicolay and Hay, "and a stick for a sword, Colonel Grant undertook to get his regiment into line-a vain task. The new commander persevered in his efforts quietly, without bluster, without oaths, without for a moment losing his patience or his temper, but holding on to his work with that desperate and characteristic pertinacity which made him famous."

Still, this first attempt failed, and the Governor went home thinking he had made a mistake in Grant. Soon after Frémont, who was then commander, ordered the regiment to Quincy. The railroad agent went to Grant to find what transportation he wanted. Grant said that a part of the way he should have to march, as there was no railroad and they could not wait to have one built; and as the regiment was in bad discipline, he would march all the way; his orders gave him time enough. So he started with his wagons.

The first evening he issued an order that the next morning the regiment would march at six o'clock. But at six o'clock many of the men were still asleep and the regiment did not get off until seven. The next evening he gave the order that the following morning the regiment would march at six, ready or not ready. At six exactly the column was formed and the march began; a good many of the laggards had not even their shoes on and had to march without them and could not even carry them. After two or three miles' march the column halted, and the shoes were sent for. The next morning "the tap of the six o'clock drum found every man ready to fall in." This is one of the stories told of Grant. At least, we know that one wonderful

thing about him was that he was always on time; and his men had to be.

It was Mr. Lincoln's belief that the Southern confederacy could not be captured at once, "all in a lump," as one might say; but must be taken possession of "a slice at a time." By wonderful tact and ability and knowledge of conditions, Lincoln had kept the States of Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland in the Union when at the beginning of the war they were all perched on a fence so narrow that even a jolt would have sent them to the Southern confederacy. Before the war was over he could say that many soldiers were in the Union army from each of these States which had at first refused any.

And the President was continually watching the West to find what was going on there. He found some things he liked well. So did the country. Halleck, Grant, Thomas, on land, and Foote and Farragut in the navy were making it lively for the confederates and taking possession of Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee in a series of victories which there is not space to give in detail. For by the November after his appointment as colonel, Grant had risen to be a general.

The confederates had fortified and garrisoned Fort Donelson on the Cumberland and Fort Henry on the Tennessee Rivers running through