Sources

Illustrative works

Pictures

163-199; Mahan, Gulf and Inland Waters, 1-109; Morse, Abraham Lincoln, I. 273–387, II. 31-94, 134–139, 170, 171; Bancroft, W. H. Seward, II. 163–253; Hart, S. P. Chase, 211-252, 274–289; Adams, C. F. Adams, 147-239; Michie, General McClellan, 69– 442, 459-475; Wilson, General Grant, 74–159, 330–339; Lee, General Lee, 99-239; Hughes, General Johnston, 36-156; Hovey, Stonewall Jackson, 1-107.

Hart, Source Book, §§ 116-119, Contemporaries, IV. §§ 75, 80, 84-95, 98, 99, 102–116, Source Readers, IV. §§ 30–42, 49–71, 74-80, 90-109; MacDonald, Select Statutes, nos. 2-16, 19, 21–27, 30, 37; American History Leaflets, nos. 18, 26; Riddle, Recollections, 28-128, 168-198; Grant, Personal Memoirs, I. 229–421; Century Company, Battles and Leaders, I. 99–750, II. III. 1–147 ; American Annual Cyclopedia, 1861, 1862; Hosmer, Color Guard, - Thinking Bayonet ; Goss, Recollections of a Private; Higginson, Army Life in a Black Regiment; W. T. Sherman, Memoirs; South and West; Manassas to Appomattox; E. Eggleston, Rebel's Recollections; Jones, Rebel War Clerk's Diary. See N. Eng. Hist. Teachers' Ass'n, Syllabus, 354-356,

-

- Historical Sources, § 88.

Matthews, Poems of American Patriotism, 127-214; Moore, Lyrics of Loyalty, Rebel Rhymes; Eggleston, American War Ballads, I. 167-226, II. 3-105; Lowell, Biglow Papers (second series), Washers of the Shroud; C. F. Browne, Artemus Ward: His Book, · Artemus Ward: His Travels; R. H. Newell, Orpheus C. Kerr Papers; R. G. White, New Gospel of Peace; J. T. Trowbridge, Drummer Boy, — Cudjo's Care; B. K. Benson, Who Goes There? Charles Morris, Historical Tales, 270–291.

Century Company, Battles and Leaders; Harper's Pictorial History of the Rebellion; Edwin Forbes, Artist's Story of the Great War; E. R. Johnson, Campfire and Battlefield; Harper's Weekly; Frank Leslie's Weekly.

CHAPTER XXIX.

EMANCIPATION AND MILITARY ADVANCE (1862-1863)

389. The

contra

As the war went on, it became evident that its purpose could not be limited, as proposed by the resolution of July, 1861, to restoring the Union as it was; for slavery could not be kept out of the contest. A recognized measure of war against a slaveholding country is for the invading com- (1861-1862) mander to declare the slaves of his enemy free; and Congress made an indirect use of this power in August, 1861, through a

confiscation act pro-
viding that if slaves
were used in promot-
ing any insurrection,
"the owners should
'forfeit claim
such labor."

to

As soon as the ar

mies began to move, hundreds of negroes took matters into their own hands by running away and

coming into the federal camps. General Benjamin F. Butler, in command at Fort Monroe, found more than a thousand such refugees. When he was asked to surrender some fugitives to their masters, who came from within the Confederate lines to claim them, he replied, "I shall detain the negroes as contraband of war." The phrase struck the popular fancy, and from

bands

that time to the end of the war, "contraband" meant a southern slave, usually a refugee. Two Union generals tried to go farther. General Frémont (August, 1861) and General Hunter (May, 1862) issued proclamations freeing the slaves in their military districts, and even beyond; but President Lincoln disavowed both the proclamations, because slavery was too large a question to be settled by subordinates.

On slavery Congress at first outran the President, and in 1862 passed three sweeping emancipation acts:

390. Eman- (1) The 3000 slaves in the District of Columbia were cipation by set free (April 16, 1862), and their masters were given a Congress

(1862-1864) compensation of about $300 for each one.

(2) In flat contradiction to the Dred Scott decision of 1857, Congress passed a statute (June 19, 1862) immediately abolishing slavery in every territory, without compensation.

(3) A strong feeling of personal wrath against the leaders on the other side caused Congress to provide, in a second confiscation act (July 17, 1862), for the seizure of all the property of people convicted of treason, or who "engaged in armed rebellion," including such slaves of rebel owners as might in any manner come inside the Union lines. Though Lincoln thought it "startling to say that Congress can free a slave within a State," he signed the bill; and as fast as the federal lines extended, thousands of slaves flocked to the federal camps, and thus became free.

of foreign intervention

By this time it became necessary to prove to foreign nations that the North was making war in behalf of freedom, and not 391. Danger simply for the sake of ruling the South, for the blockade cut off the raw material for the foreign cotton manufactures, so that thousands of English and French workmen were thrown out of work. Napoleon III., emperor of the French, was trying to conquer Mexico and had no liking for the North; and the ruling aristocracy of England made no secret of its hope that the South would succeed. That brilliant

(1862-1863)

young statesman, William E. Gladstone, publicly said, "Jeffer-
son Davis and other leaders of the South have made an
army; they are making, it appears, a navy; and they have
made, which is more important than either. . . a nation."

Southern agents in Europe strove hard to persuade foreign powers to recognize the independence of the South. After the defeats of McClellan and Pope in 1862, Lord Palmerston, the British prime minister, was on the point of offering a "mediation," which would have been partial recognition; but there was a strong Union sentiment in England, especially among the workmen in the cotton mills, who felt that the rights of free labor were involved, and they were represented in Parliament by the orator John Bright. The defeat of the ironclad Merrimac, the battle of Antietam, and still more the successes in the West during 1862, took away the pretexts for immediate recognition.

Rhodes,

United

States,

IV. 339

392. Abraham Lin

dent

The man for this crisis was Abraham Lincoln, the one indispensable figure in the Civil War. Two characteristics made him the greatest man of his time: his practical common sense went straight home to the essential point in every- coln, Presithing that he was considering; and a quick sensitive. heart knew by instinct the beliefs and hopes of his fellowcountrymen. Toward the weak and needy, Lincoln had a tender feeling. He could not even bear to sign the death warrant of a deserter, for, he said, "I am trying to evade the butchering business." The same sympathy and sweetness of character were shown in a thousand ways to the people who beset the White House with their little personal errands the poor woman whose only son was sick in the hospital, or the boy who wanted a commission, or the stranger who came in from mere curiosity.

Although Lincoln always distrusted his own military judgment, he learned to understand the conditions of war better than most of his commanders; and his writings are full of

Lincoln,

345

quaint telegrams to his generals; for example: "Fight him, too, when opportunity offers. If he stays where he is, Works, II. fret him and fret him." On another side of his character, Lincoln was the shrewdest politician of his time; he was very keen in judging election returns; he knew how to keep congressmen good-natured with offices. Yet he had unyielding tenacity when necessary. To General Grant he once telegraphed: "I have seen your dispatch expressing your unwillingness to break your hold where you are. Neither am I willing. Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke

as much as possible."

During the first three years of the war, Lincoln was criticised or even deserted by many members of his own party, who thought him weak and indecisive because he held a temperate middle course, avoiding extremes. Only by degrees did people begin to understand that this plain, homely man in the White House had a spirit of surpassing wisdom, and an unselfish care for his country's welfare. Patient in defeat, calm in victory, Abraham Lincoln came to be recognized as a true father of his country.

393. Preliminaries of emanci

pation (1862)

Morse,

Throughout 1862 President Lincoln was brooding over the question of his duty to his country, and his power as constitutional commander in chief to declare free all the slaves in the Confederacy. Lincoln was born in a border slave state, understood the southern people, and was anxious not to take any step which would drive Kentucky and Missouri out of the Union. Therefore, he sent to Congress a message (March, 1862) urging that the federal government coöperate with the states in setting the slaves free, with a money payment to the masters.

Lincoln said of himself: "I am naturally antislavery. If

slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong"; and at anLincoln, 105 other time, "You must not expect me to give up this government without playing my last card." In August, 1862,