thoroughly loyal, and coloured men are more easily disciplined than white men. Put as many of them as possible under my command."

Senator Henry Wilson wrote a letter to Mr. Washburne about calling General Grant to the East, and Mr. Washburne sent the letter to Grant. It called out a characteristic letter from Grant, in which his ruling virtue of modesty is conspicuous, and his views of slavery plainly stated. We extract the following:

"I fully appreciate all Senator Wilson says. Had it not been for General Halleck and Dana, I think it altogether likely I would have been ordered to the Potomac. My going could do no possible good. They have there able officers who have been brought up with that army, and to import a commander to place over them certainly could produce no good.

"Whilst I would not positively disobey an order, I would have objected most vehemently to taking that command, or any other, except the one I have. I can do more with this army than it would be possible for me to do with any other, without time to make the same acquaintance with others I have with this. I know that the soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee can be relied on to the fullest extent. I believe I know the exact capacity of every general in my command to command troops, and just where to place them to get from them their best services. This is a matter of no small consequence.

The people of the North need not quarrel over the institution of slavery. What Vice-president Stephens acknowledges as the corner-stone of the Confederacy is already knocked out. Slavery is already dead, and cannot be resurrected. It would take a standing army to maintain slavery in the South, if we were

to make peace to-day, guaranteeing to the South all their former constitutional privileges.

"I never was an Abolitionist-not even what could be called Anti-slavery-but I try to judge fairly and honestly; and it became patent to my mind early in the rebellion, that the North and South could never live in peace with each other except as one nation. As anxious as I am to see peace, and that without slavery, re-established, I would not therefore be willing to see any settlement until this question be for ever settled."

Port Hudson was evacuated soon after the fall of Vicksburg, as Grant predicted. General Halleck thought that Grant should co-operate with Banks and reduce Port Hudson before Vicksburg was assaulted. Grant held that the fall of Vicksburg would necessitate the fall of Port Hudson, and he was right.

He visited New Orleans to confer with General Banks. While there, Banks ordered a grand review, and provided General Grant with the finest horse in the city for the occasion. A steam-whistle frightened the animal, and he ran against a carriage, and both horse and rider fell. This time Grant did not find himself at the top, as usual. The horse was top, and the result was that Grant was in bed twenty days, and then walked with crutches two months. It is the only instance we find of Grant falling from a horse, although he began to ride horseback at five years of age. This time the conqueror was almost conquered by a horse!

On his return to Vicksburg, his wife and children 'spent some time with him in that city-an episode in his military life which he enjoyed as only a devoted husband and father can.

XVI.

GREATER THINGS YET.

THE "Father of Waters" rolling now, as President Lincoln said, "unvexed to the sea," greater things than ever were expected of General Grant. Lincoln's confidence in him was confirmed, and those croakers who had worried him for months because he adhered to Grant were silenced. Lincoln disclosed to the editor of Forney's Chronicle the trouble he had experienced, when the latter called, just as the news of the fall of Vicksburg reached the President.

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"Mr. President, have you any news to give me tonight?" the editor inquired.

"Yes, great news; but you must hurry up, for I have company downstairs, and can't wait long. Grant has taken Vicksburg! Here are two dispatches, one from Rawlins, the other from Hurlburt. Don't stop to read them, but I'll copy the short one while you copy the long one, as you can write faster than I.”

"Mr. Lincoln, this must be most gratifying to you after standing by Grant so steadfastly," suggested the editor.

"Yes, it is. No man will ever know how much trouble I have had to carry my point about him. The opposition from several of our best Republicans has been so bitter that I could hardly resist it."

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'The newspapers assailed him outrageously," added the editor.

"True, but that wasn't half the trouble. Why, after Shiloh, a Republican senator from Iowa denounced him to me as bloodthirsty, reckless of human life, and utterly unfit to lead troops; and because I wouldn't sit down and dismiss him at once, went out in a rage, slamming the door after him. Even within the last two days, senators have demanded his immediate removal." If President Lincoln had not possessed as much sound common sense, good judgment, self-reliance, and courageous decision as General Grant himself, the latter would never have had the opportunity to capture Vicksburg.

At this time, General Rosecrans was cooped up at Chattanooga with his army of sixty thousand men. The rebels had invested the place with eighty thousand troops, in order to starve him into surrender. He had fought the hard battle of Chickamauga, and was driven back to Chattanooga, within his entrenchments. His situation was critical. His army was subsisting on half rations, and supplies could reach him only by one hard mountain road. General Bragg was threatening General Burnside at Knoxville, whose situation was also precarious. General Grant was appointed to command all these forces, including the division of Thomas, the department extending a thousand miles, from Natchez on the Mississippi to Knoxville on the Tennessee, He was to lead the three armies of the West, numbering two hundred thousand men, and provide for them. In order to leave him untrammelled, he was clothed with the powers of a dictator, in part. His control of the "Grand Military Division of the Mississippi" was absolute, necessarily so. If Grant could not save the army

of Rosecrans, and deliver the Union cause from great peril in the West, then no one could. This was the feeling of Lincoln and the country.

Grant, by telegram, directed General Thomas to supersede Rosecrans at once, and instructed him,

"To hold Chattanooga at all hazards."

Thomas, whom the soldiers named "Rock of Chickamauga," for his heroic deeds in the late battle, replied,

66 We will hold it till we starve."

On the 23rd of October, at midnight, in a hard storm and dense darkness, General Grant reached Chattanooga, and proceeded at once to provide a way to feed the half-starved army. His orders flew like wind in every direction. In five days he brought order out of confusion, had possession of Lookout Valley, with ample food for man and beast pouring into the city; and what was better still, inspired the disheartened army with the hope and enthusiasm of his own soul.

The enemy commanded three important elevations,Lookout Mountain, Raccoon Mountain, and Missionary Ridge; and here heavy batteries were planted and protected by earth-works. The first elevation was two thousand four hundred feet above the river, the second nearly as high, and the third four hundred feet. To human view it was impossible for Grant, with any number of heroic men, to scale those heights and capture the batteries or drive the foe. Jefferson Davis, the Confederate President, visited Lookout Mountain, and looking down upon the Union forces in pent-up Chattanooga, said,

"I have them now in the trap I have set for them." Nevertheless, General Grant resolved to possess the heights. Can't was not in his dictionary. He was still