would make our armies invincible at the opening of the campaign of next year, and enable us to win back our lost territory and conquer a peace before that campaign shall be ended.

"We beg further to suggest that, in our opinion, the dissatisfaction, apprehended or existing, from short rations, depreciated currency, and the retention of old soldiers in service, might be obviated by allowing bounties, with discriminations in favour of retained troops; an increase of pay; the commutation to enlisted men of rations not issued; and rations, or the value thereof, to officers."

In the campaign of 1864, Gen. Breckinridge was detached for important service in South-western Virginia, commanding two brigades of infantry and a battalion of artillery. Having united his forces with Imboden's brigade of cavalry, or mounted infantry, he met and defeated Sigel at New Market on the 15th May, breaking up this part of Grant's combination against Richmond, and joining Gen. Lee at Hanover Junction, as he moved back upon the capital. His infantry then numbered less than 3,000 muskets, although the enemy, in accounting for his victory over Sigel, had put it at 15,000! In the subsequent months of this year, Gen. Breckinridge assisted in the defence of Lynchburg, and accompanied Gen. Early in his expedition towards Washington and the consequent campaign.

In the last winter of the war he was made Secretary of War, a post for which he was eminently fit, and to which it would have been well if he had been assigned when he first made, in 1861, the unqualified offer of his services to the Confederate government. Brilliant though he was as a soldier, and with a record of services that had traversed nearly the whole breadth of the Confederacy, the character of his mind and the experience of his life qualified him better for the council than the field; and when he was appointed Secretary of War, people wondered that he had not been chosen such long before, especially as this office, for years, had gone begging, and had been filled with men who were mere experiments on the public confidence. His short term of executive office in Richmond was acceptable to all parties, and was marked by an infusion of vigour which was gratefully noticed by intelligent men, although it was too late to save the Confederacy.

scene:

Gen. Breckinridge accompanied President Davis in his flight from Richmond, as one of his small party of personal adherents; but, in North Carolina, he was persuaded by the President to visit the camp of Gen. Johnston, and consult with him on the terms. of surrender. He was present at the famous conference at Durham Station, when Gen. Sherman offered certain important guaranties for the pacification of the country, which were afterwards revoked. He rejoined President Davis at Charlotte, where the fragments of a few brigades, less than 800 men, attended the fugitive chief of the Confederacy, determined to march, if possible, to Gens. Taylor and Forrest, in Alabama. The force moved through South Carolina with great deliberation. At Abbeville, in this State, was held the last Confederate council of the war; and here President Davis exhibited his peculiarly sanguine temperament and his utter want of realization of the extremity of his cause. A member of the council thus describes the pitiable "Mr. Davis desired to know, from his brigade commanders, the true spirit of the men. He presided himself. Besides Gens. Breckinridge and Bragg, none others were present than the five brigade commanders. Mr. Davis was apparently untouched by any of the demoralization which prevailed-he was affable, dignified, and looked the very personification of high and undaunted courage. Each officer gave, in turn, a statement of the condition and feeling of his men; and, when urged to do so, declared his own views of the situation. In substance, all said the same. They and their followers despaired of successfully conducting the war, and doubted the propriety of prolonging it. The honour of the soldiery was involved in securing Mr. Davis's safe escape, and their pride induced them to put off submission to the last moment. They would risk battle in the accomplishments of these objects, but would not ask their men to struggle against a fate which was inevitable, and forfeit all hope of a restoration to their homes and friends. Mr. Davis declared that he wished to hear no plan which had for its object only his safety-that 2,500 brave men were enough to prolong the war until the panic had passed away, and they would then be a nucleus for thousands more. He urged us to accept his views. We were silent, for we could not agree with him, and respected him too much to reply. He then said, bitterly, that he saw all

hope was gone-that all the friends of the South were prepared to consent to her degradation. When he arose to leave the room, he had lost his erect bearing, his face was pale, and he faltered so much in his step that he was compelled to lean upon Gen. Breckinridge.'

At Washington, Georgia, the small force of cavalry that yet escorted what remained of the Confederate government divided, and Gen. Breckinridge, accompanied by a few Kentucky soldiers, took a different route from that fatally pursued by President Davis and his party. He had proceeded but a short distance when he learned of the surrender of the Southwestern department and of the vicinity of a battalion of Federal cavalry. He formed his forty-five men; he told them of his resolution to risk an attempt at escape; but he counselled them to surrender, for he wished them to return to Kentucky-to their homes and kindred. He forbade any effort to assist his escape. "I will not have," he said, "one of these young men to encounter one hazard more for my sake." Taking an affectionate farewell of the brave men who had adhered to him to the last extremity, and bidding them return to the loved land of their birth, he went off into exile.

At Durham Station, Gen. Breckinridge had been satisfied of the termination of the war on a basis that afforded no protection to the civil rights of those who had participated in it. Acting on this conviction, he determined to accept the alternative of exile rather than to incur proscription in his own land. He has since the war resided at different times in Europe and in Canada, and is reported to live in circumstances of great poverty. Fallen

* The account of this conference strongly displays the justice of an estimate of President Davis' character made by the author in another work-" The Lost Cause." In that work (at page 685) the author wrote:

"The speeches of the President offended the sober sense of the Confederacy; and it was frequently said that he attempted to blind the people as to the actual condition of affairs, and never dealt with them in a proper spirit of candour. Bnt this estimate of President Davis is probably a mistaken one. He was not insincere; in all his strange and extravagant utterances of confidence he probably believed what he spoke; and to the last he appears never to have apprehended the real situation. He was blinded by his own natural temper; in the last moment he was issuing edicts, playing with the baubles of authority, never realizing that he was not still the great tribune; he was sustained by a powerful self-conceit, and a sanguine temperament; and he went down to ruin with the fillet of vanity upon his eyes."

from his high estate of worldly prosperity, an impoverished wanderer in foreign lands, he yet has an abiding love in the hearts of his countrymen and a fee of glory which, though disputed now, posterity will surely render.

Gen. Breckinridge has a striking and noble presence. There is no description which fits his person so well as the single word "superb," with its Latin significance and classic associations. Perfect and well-proportioned in all his parts, dignified without a sign of stiffness, graceful as a woman, a veteran of society, and a man who for his age has had the largest political experience in his generation in America, he appears born both to command and to please. A prominent, bulging brow, with deep-set eyes, large and brilliant, gives a massive grandeur to the face, while the lower features show the chiselled, clear-cut marks of noble blood. He was admired as one of the handsomest men in the Confederacy. He was always a favourite of society; he was one of those men who always did and said just what the occasion. demanded; and in his public speeches and addresses, although he gave evidences of a great intellect and was numbered among the orators of America, he was yet more remarkable for that nice. adjustment of the proprieties which shows the cultivated scholar, and constitutes the perfect gentleman.

MAJ.-GENERAL MANSFIELD LOVELL.

CHAPTER LVI.

His early life and politics.-Story of the fall of New Orleans.-Importance of its line of water-defence.-Gen. Lovell's hands tied by red tape at Richmond.-Not to be blamed for the disaster.-His gallant services after the loss of New Orleans.President Davis refuses to give him a command under Johnston.

THE father of Mansfield Lovell was a citizen of New York; but he came on the maternal side from a Georgian family. He was born in the District of Columbia, was educated at West Point, and, graduating there, was promoted to a second lieutenancy in the Fourth Artillery, July 1, 1842. In the Mexican war he acted as aide-de-camp to Maj.-Gen. Quitman, was wounded in the assault of Chapultepec, and was brevetted captain for gallant and meritorious conduct in that battle. When the war broke out between the North and South, Gen. Lovell had resigned his commission in the United States army, and was living in New York city, and discharging the duties there of deputy Street-Commissioner. He determined to abandon his office, and to cast in his lot with the fortunes of the South. He had always been a strong Democrat, his antecedents were Southern, and he had been a slave-owner all his life. In the old army he had made considerable reputation as an artillerist; and he came to Richmond with high military and political recommendations.

The name of Mansfield Lovell is connected with one of the greatest and most astounding disasters of the war; and in this respect his reputation has suffered so unjustly that it is difficult even now to obtain his dues, and to recall the real merits of the man. That disaster was the fall of New Orleans, and its story is one of the most remarkable of the war. Having obtained the commission