The Committee leaped to their feet with a shout of applause and crowded around him to congratulate and praise the man they came to bury. There was no longer a question of his resignation. The fall of Atlanta would thrill the North. A wave of wild enthusiasm would sweep into the sea the last trace of gloom and despair. They were practical men—else, as rats, they would never have tried to desert their own ship. They knew that the tide was going to turn, but it was a swift tide that could turn before they could!

They wrung the President's hands, they shouted his praise, they had always gloried in his administration, but foolish grumblers hadn't been able to see things as they saw them-hence this hue and cry! They congratulated him on his certain triumph and the President watched them go with a quiet smile. He was too big to cherish resentments. He only pitied small men, he never hated them.

CHAPTER XL

WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE

General Grant fired a salute in honor of the Atlanta victory with shotted guns from every battery on his siege lines of thirty-seven miles before Richmond and Petersburg. To Sherman he sent a remarkable message-the kind which great men know how to pen:

"You have accomplished the most gigantic undertaking given to any General in this war, with a skill and ability which will be acknowledged in history as unsurpassed if not unequaled."

From the depths of despair the North swung to the wildest enthusiasm and in the election which followed Abraham Lincoln was swept into power again on a tidal wave. He received in round numbers two million five hundred thousand votes, McClellan two millions. His majority by States in the electoral college was overwhelming-two hundred and twelve to his opponent's twenty-one.

The closing words of his second Inaugural rang clear and quivering with emotion over the vast crowd:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphanto do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

As the last echo died away among the marble pillars above, the sun burst through the clouds and flooded the scene. A mighty cheer swept the throng and the guns boomed their second salute. The war was closing in lasting peace and the sun shining on the finished dome of the Capitol of a new nation.

Betty Winter, leaning on John Vaughan's arm, was among the first to grasp his big, outstretched hand: "A glorious day for us, sir," she cried, "a proud one for you!"

With a far-away look the President slowly answered: "And all that I am in this world, Miss Betty, I owe to a woman-my angel mother-blessings on her memory!"

"I trust her spirit heard that beautiful speech," the girl responded tenderly.

She paused, looked up at John, blushed and added: "We are to be married next week, Mr. President

"Is it so?" he said joyfully. "I wish I could be there, my children-but I'm afraid 'Old Grizzly' might bite me. So I'll say it now-God bless you!"

He took their hands in his and pressed them heartily. His eyes suddenly rested on a shining black face grinning behind John Vaughan.

"My, my, can this be Julius Cæsar Thornton?" he laughed.

"Yassah," the black man grinned. "Hit's me ole reliable, sah, right here-I'se gwine ter cook fur 'em!"

From the moment of Abraham Lincoln's election the end of the war with a restored Union was a foregone conclusion.

In the fall of Atlanta the heart of the Confederacy was pierced, and it ceased to beat. Lee's army, cut off from their supplies, slowly but surely began to starve behind their impregnable breastworks. Sherman's march to the sea and through the Carolinas was merely a torchlight parade. The fighting was done.

When Lee's emaciated men, living on a handful of parched corn a day, staggered out of their trenches in the spring and tried to join Johnston's army they marched a few miles to Appomattox, dropping from exhaustion, and surrendered.

When the news of this tremendous event reached Washington, the Cabinet was in session. Led by the President, in silence and tears, they fell on their knees in a prayer of solemn thanks to Almighty God.

General Grant won the gratitude of the South by his generous treatment of Lee and his ragged men. He had received instructions from the loving heart in the White House.

Long before the surrender in April, 1865, the end was sure. The President knowing this, proposed to his Cabinet to give the South four hundred millions of dollars, the cost of the war for a hundred days, in payment for their slaves, if they would lay down their arms at once. His ministers unanimously voted against his offer and he sadly withdrew it. Among all his councillors there was not one whose soul was big enough to understand the far-seeing wisdom of his generous plan. He would heal at once one of the Nation's ugliest wounds by soothing the bitterness of defeat. He knew that despair would send the older men of the South to their graves.

Edmund Ruffin, who had fired the first shot against

Sumter and returned to his Virginia farm when his State seceded, was a type of these ruined, desperate men. On the day that Lee surrendered he placed the muzzle of his gun in his mouth, pulled the trigger with his foot, and blew his own head into fragments.

When Senator Winter demanded proscription and vengeance against the leaders of the Confederacy, the President shook his head:

"No-let down the bars-let them all go scare them off!"

He threw up his big hands in a vivid gesture as if he were shooing a flock of troublesome sheep out of his garden.

"Triumphant now, you will receive our enemies with open arms?" the Senator sneered.

"Enemies? There are no such things. The Southern States have never really been out of the Union. Their Acts of Secession were null and void. They know now that the issue is forever settled. The re< stored Union will be a real one. The Southern people at heart are law-abiding. It was their reverence for the letter of the old law which led them to ignore progress and claim the right to secede under the Constitution. They will be true to Lee's pledge of surrender. I'm going to trust them as my brethren. Let us fold up our banners now and smelt the guns- Love rules -let her mightier purpose run!"

So big and generous, so broad and statesmanlike was his spirit that in this hour of victory his personality became in a day the soul of the New Republic. The South had already unconsciously grown to respect the man who had loved yet fought her for what he believed to be her highest good.

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