A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS

Lee's retreat.

its surrender July 4. to the sea.' The

Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863.· Lincoln's order to the army to pursue the enemy. The great battle of the war at Gettysburg, July 1, 2, 3, a victory for the Union. Grant's long struggle for Vicksburg, and -"The 'Father of Waters' goes unvexed draft. - The draft riots in New York, July 13, 14, 15, 16. —Lincoln and the "Copperheads." His hatred of tyranny. His modesty. The victories around Chattanooga, November 24, 25, 28. — Lincoln's Gettysburg address, November 19, 1863.

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THE war had been in progress more than two years, when Lee, with easy confidence, left the defences of Richmond, and at the head of the ever victorious Army of Northern Virginia bore the stars and bars of the South into the North.

The great captain of the Confederacy had so readily overthrown in turn each champion of the Union who had been sent against him that the foe no longer inspired his respect. He resolved to carry the war into the enemy's country, strike terror to the prosperous population of the free states, deal the Union a staggering blow on the heart, unfurl his colors above the Capitol at Washington, and dictate a final peace to a prostrate nation.

As Lee's mighty columns swept upward, Hooker, in command of the Army of the Potomac, proposed to swoop down on Richmond and take the exposed capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln, however, instantly rejected this plan, without losing a minute for consultation with military advisers. Guided by his own common sense, he told Hooker that Lee's army, and not Richmond, should be his point of attack.

He argued that the city could not be captured in less than twenty days. In all that time, Lee would have a free hand in his invasion. Moreover, Richmond was worth nothing in comparison with the capture or defeat of the Confederate army. "Follow on his flank," Lincoln's order ran, "and on his inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens his." No decision in the war was more important than this, or more fruitful of results.

Hooker pursued Lee across Maryland. The Confederates entered Pennsylvania unchallenged, however, and seventy-five thousand southern soldiers trod the free soil of the Keystone State. At one time their cavalry dashed up to the picket lines of Harrisburg. Both Pittsburg and Philadelphia were thrown into panic. Labor ceased in those busy centers of northern industry, and the laborers were marshaled for defence.

At the height of the black crisis, the Army of the Potomac was left leaderless. General Hooker

resigned the command in a military quarrel. The country stood appalled. Lincoln and Stanton hastened to place General Meade at the head of the forces.

The new commander grasped the reins with desperate energy, and with his ninety thousand men followed the invaders into Pennsylvania so swiftly that Lee was compelled to turn about and face him at the village of Gettysburg, only a few miles from the Maryland line. There for three days, in wheat fields and peach orchards, across lovely valleys and up gentle hills, the two great armies fought an immortal battle with the life of the Union as the stake.

The opening shock of the gigantic combat occurred on the first day of July, and when night fell, victory again was with the sword of Lee. The second day dawned upon the rival hosts facing each other from opposite heights, with a valley hardly a mile wide between them. Another night found the Union army holding its ground, but with nearly twenty thousand of its men dead or wounded.

A little after noon of the third day, while the foemen watched in silence, the Confederates suddenly opened a furious bombardment with one hundred and fifteen guns. For an hour and a half

the terrible roar of the cannonading lasted, and then stillness again until Pickett rode out to the crown of Seminary Ridge, which the Confederates held, and with fifteen thousand men in gray behind him paraded down the slope. Across the valley they charged, their banners flying, beneath a maddening hail of iron from the Union batteries.

With ranks frightfully thinned but unwavering, they began the climb up Cemetery Ridge, looking into the smoking muzzles of the enemy. Even at musket range, the survivors pressed on until a Confederate officer with a hundred men had vaulted the stone wall in front of the Union forces, and borne the battle flags of the South to the very crest of Cemetery Ridge. There the little band of Southerners paused for a moment in the midst of their foes; the battle tide of the Confederacy had come to its flood.

The bugle sounded retreat, and the broken brigade fell back, while the men in blue who held the Ridge mingled with their proud rejoicing a hearty admiration for the gallantry of their fellowAmericans in gray. As Pickett's brave band, now pitifully few in numbers, returned to Seminary Ridge and flung themselves at the feet of their comrades, Lee sadly confessed, "All this has been my fault; it is I who have lost the fight."

For the Confederacy had lost the battle of Gettysburg and its great stake. The Union was saved. The next day was the Fourth of July, and the North kept it as a thanksgiving, while Lee with his shattered army turned his face southward to make his last stand in front of Richmond.

When General Meade failed to press his advantage and smash or capture the invading army before it could recross the Potomac, Lincoln's disappointment clouded his enjoyment of the victory. He entreated the General not to let Lee escape. The General and his corps commanders, however, in the reaction from the terrible strain under which they had been working throughout the momentous campaign, did not care for more fighting at once.

On hearing of their decision in council, Lincoln blamed himself for not having taken the field in person, in an effort to crush Lee, thus hastening the end of the war. When Meade expressed his satisfaction that the enemy in its retreat was no longer on our soil, the President complained, "Why will not our generals get that notion out of their heads? All American soil is ours!"

While watching and urging the movement which came to its climax at Gettysburg, Lincoln's heavy anxiety was greatly increased by the long campaign which Grant was making against Vicksburg. From