The Civil War a Narrative Part 18

In any event-aside, that is, from the disconcerting, not to say unnerving effect on the graybacks of having some two hundred fear-crazed mules come bearing down on them out of the clattering darkness-Schurz came up soon to even the odds, and the confused engagement broke off about as suddenly as it had begun. By 4 o'clock, two hours before sunrise, the Confederates had withdrawn across Lookout Creek, leaving the field to the men who had held it in the first place, and Bragg made no further attempt to interfere with the opening of the new Federal supply line. At a cost of well under five hundred casualties-420 for Hooker, 37 for Smith-Grant had inflicted perhaps twice as many, including the prisoners taken at Brown's Ferry and picked up later on Racc.o.o.n Mountain, and had delivered the Chattanooga garrison from the grim threat of starvation, the most urgent of the several problems he had found waiting for him on his arrival, five days back. On October 30, exactly one week after he rode into town, "wet, dirty, and well," the little steamboat Smith had built tied up at Kelley's Ferry, completing a run from Bridgeport with a cargo of 40,000 rations for the troops at the opposite end of c.u.mmings Gap. According to an officer aboard her, an orderly sent on horseback to announce the steamer's arrival returned to report "that the news went through the camps faster than his horse, and the soldiers were jubilant and cheering, 'The Cracker Line's open. Full rations, boys! Three cheers for the Cracker Line,' as if we had won another victory; and we had."

So far as Grant himself was concerned, the issue had been decided as soon as the pontoon bridge was thrown and the bridgehead secured at Brown's Ferry. His mind had moved on to other matters, even before the night action at Wauhatchie seemed for a moment to threaten the loss of what had been won. "The question of supplies may now be regarded as settled," he wired Halleck that evening, four hours before Geary came under attack. "If the rebels give us one week more time I think all danger of losing territory now held by us will have pa.s.sed away, and preparations may commence for offensive operations."

4.

Pleased though he was by the prospect, as he saw it from his Chattanooga headquarters now that the Cracker Line was open, Grant would have felt even more encouraged if he somehow had been able to sit in on the councils across the way, on Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, and thus acquire firsthand knowledge of the bitterness that had prevailed for the past month in the camps of his adversaries. Bragg's dissatisfaction with several of his ranking lieutenants for their shortcomings during the weeks that preceded Chickamauga-willful inept.i.tudes, as he saw it, which had cost him the opportunity to destroy the Federal army piecemeal, in McLemore's Cove and elsewhere-was matched, if not exceeded, by their dissatisfaction with his failure, as they saw it, to gather the fruits of their great victory during the weeks that followed. Resentment bred dissension; dissension provoked criminations; recriminations led to open breaks. Polk and Hindman had departed and Harvey Hill was about to follow, relieved of duty by the army commander; while still another top subordinate-more nearly indispensable, some would say, than all the rest combined-had left under his own power. This was Forrest.

His contention that "we ought to press forward as rapidly as possible" having been ignored on the morning after the battle, the Tennessee cavalryman was sent northwest with his division, four days later, to head off or delay a supposed Union advance from Knoxville. No such threat existed, but Forrest did encounter enemy cavalry hovering in that direction and drove them helter-skelter across the Hiwa.s.see, then through Athens and Sweet.w.a.ter, slashing at their flanks and rear, to Loudon, where the survivors managed to get beyond his reach by crossing the Tennessee, eighty miles above Chattanooga and less than half that far from Knoxville. Having determined that no bluecoats were advancing from the latter place, he was on his way back across the Hiwa.s.see, September 28, when he received a dispatch signed by an a.s.sistant adjutant on Bragg's staff. "The general commanding desires that you will without delay turn over the troops of your command previously ordered to Major General Wheeler." There was no explanation, no mention of the raid that Wheeler was about to make on the Federal supply line: just the peremptory order to "turn over the troops of your command." Forrest complied, of course, but then, having done so, dictated and sent through channels a fiery protest. "Bragg never got such a letter as that before from a brigadier," he told the staffer who took it down. A couple of days later, during an interview with the army commander, he was a.s.sured that he would get his men back as soon as they returned from over the river, and he was granted, in the interim, a ten-day leave to go to La Grange, Georgia, to see his wife for the first time since his visit to Memphis to recuperate from his Shiloh wound, a year and a half ago. While he was at La Grange, sixty miles southwest of Atlanta, he received an army order issued just after his interview with Bragg, a.s.signing Wheeler "to the command of all the cavalry in the Army of Tennessee." Since his oath-taken in early February, after the Donelson repulse and their near duel-that he would never again serve under Wheeler was well known at headquarters, this amounted to a permanent separation of Forrest and the troopers he had raised on his own and seasoned, shortly afterward, on his December strike at Grant's supply lines in West Tennessee. Moreover, he took the order as a personal affront and he reacted in a characteristically direct manner. Interrupting his leave, he went at once to see the commanding general, accompanied by his staff surgeon as a witness.

Bragg received him in his tent on Missionary Ridge, rising and offering his hand as the Tennessean entered. Forrest declined it. "I am not here to pa.s.s civilities or compliments with you, but on other business," he said, and he launched without further preamble into a heated denunciation, which he punctuated by stabbing in Bragg's direction with a rigid index finger: "I have stood your meanness as long as I intend to. You have played the part of a d.a.m.ned scoundrel, and are a coward, and if you were any part of a man I would slap your jaws and force you to resent it. You may as well not issue any more orders to me, for I will not obey them ... and I say to you that if you ever again try to interfere with me or cross my path it will be at the peril of your life." And having thus attended to what he had called his "other business," he turned abruptly and stalked out of the tent. "Well, you are in for it now," his doctor companion said as they rode away. Forrest disagreed. "He'll never say a word about it; he'll be the last man to mention it. Mark my words, he'll take no action in the matter. I will ask to be relieved and transferred to a different field, and he will not oppose it."

Forrest was right in his prediction; Bragg neither took official notice of the incident nor disapproved the cavalryman's request for transfer, which was submitted within the week. He was wrong, though, in his interpretation of his superior's motives. Braxton Bragg was no coward; he was afraid of no man alive, not even Bedford Forrest. Rather, he was willing to overlook the personal affront-as the hot-tempered Tennessean, with far less provocation, had not been-for the good of their common cause. He knew and valued Forrest's abilities, up to a point, and by not pressing charges for insubordination-which would certainly have stuck-he saved his services for the country. Partly, no doubt, this was because he saw him as primarily a raider, not only a nonprofessional but an "irregular," and as such less subject to discipline for irregularities, even ones so violent as this. Others of higher rank in his army were less direct in their denunciations, but he exercised no such forbearance where they were concerned. Polk and Hindman and Hill, for instance; these he saw as regulars, and he treated them as such, writing directly to the Commander in Chief of their "want of prompt conformity to orders," as well as of their "having taken steps to procure my removal in a manner both unmilitary and un-officerlike."

He had particular reference to Hill in this, and he was right. In fact, there existed in the upper echelon of his army a cabal whose purpose was just that, to "procure [his] removal," and to do so by much the same method he himself had been employing; that is, by complaining individually and collectively to the President and the Secretary of War. Davis had received by now Polk's letter stigmatizing Bragg for "palpable weakness and mismanagement," and had also read Longstreet's note to Seddon, protesting "that nothing but the hand of G.o.d can save us or help us as long as we have our present commander." These he sought to deal with indirectly, on October 3, by explaining at some length to Bragg why he had recommended that the charges against the departed Polk not be pressed. "It was with the view of avoiding a controversy, which could not heal the injury sustained and which I feared would entail further evil," he wrote, adding that to persist would involve a full-scale investigation, "with all the crimination and recrimination there to be produced.... I fervently pray that you may judge correctly," he said in closing, "as I am well a.s.sured you will act purely for the public welfare." He hoped that this appeal to Bragg for a reduction of the pressure from above would serve to lessen the tension elsewhere along the chain of command; but he received a doc.u.ment, two days later, which showed that tension to be even greater than he had supposed. It came in the form of a round robin, a pet.i.tion addressed to the President and signed by a number of general officers, including Hill and Buckner. While admitting "that the proceeding is unusual among military men," the pet.i.tioners contended that "the extraordinary condition of affairs in this army, the magnitude of the interests at stake, and a sense of the responsibilities under which they rest to Your Excellency and to the Republic, render this proceeding, in their judgment, a matter of solemn duty, from which, as patriots, they cannot shrink."

Their grounds for concern were stated at some length. "Two weeks ago this army, elated by a great victory which promised to be the most fruitful of the war, was in readiness to pursue the defeated enemy. That enemy, driven in confusion from the field, was fleeing in disorder and panic-stricken.... Today, after having been twelve days in line of battle in that enemy's front, within cannon range of his position, the Army of Tennessee has seen a new Sebastopol rise steadily before its view. The beaten enemy, recovering behind its formidable works from the effects of his defeat, is understood to be already receiving reinforcements, while heavy additions to his strength are rapidly approaching him. Whatever may have been accomplished heretofore, it is certain that the fruits of the victory of the Chickamauga have now escaped our grasp. The Army of Tennessee, stricken with a complete paralysis, will in a few days' time be thrown strictly on the defensive, and may deem itself fortunate if it escapes from its present position without disaster." Having thus stated the problem, the generals then went on to propose a solution that was at once tactful and explicit. "In addition to reinforcements, your pet.i.tioners would deem it a dereliction of the sacred duty they owe the country if they did not further ask that Your Excellency a.s.sign to the command of this army an officer who will inspire the army and the country with undivided confidence. Without entering into a criticism of the merits of our present commander, your pet.i.tioners regard it as a sufficient reason, without a.s.signing others, to urge his being relieved, because, in their opinion, the condition of his health totally unfits him for the command of an army in the field."

Authorship of the doc.u.ment was afterwards disputed. Some said Buckner wrote it, others Hill. Bragg, for one, believed he recognized the hand of the latter in the phrasing, but Hill denied this; "Polk got it up," he said. Whoever wrote it, Davis decided that what it called for-particularly in a closing sentence: "Your pet.i.tioners cannot withhold from Your Excellency the expression of the fact that, as it now exists, they can render you no a.s.surance of the success which Your Excellency may reasonably expect"-was another presidential journey west. "I leave in the morning for General Bragg's headquarters," he wired Lee, who was preparing to cross the Rapidan that week, "and hope to be serviceable in harmonizing some of the difficulties existing there."

He left Richmond aboard a special train, October 6, accompanied by two military aides, Colonels William P. Johnston and Custis Lee-sons of Albert Sidney Johnston and R. E. Lee-his young secretary, Burton Harrison, and the still-disconsolate John Pemberton, for whom no commensurate employment had been found in the nearly three months since his formal release from parole. Personally this saddened Davis almost as much as it did the unhappy Pennsylvanian, whom he admired for his firmness under adversity. But the truth was, there was much of sadness all around them as they traveled through the heartland of the South, in the faces of the people in their shabby towns and on their neglected farms, in the condition of the roadbeds and the cars, and even in the itinerary the presidential party was obliged to follow. The Confederacy's shrinking fortunes were reflected all too plainly in the fact that this second western journey was necessarily far more roundabout than the first had been in December, when Davis had gone directly to Chattanooga by way of Knoxville. Now the compa.s.s-boxing route led south through Charlotte and Columbia, then westward to Atlanta, and finally north, through Marietta and Dalton, to Chickamauga Station. That other time, moreover, he had extended his trip to include what he called "the further West," but this would not be possible now, the area thus referred to having fallen, like Knoxville and Chattanooga itself, under Federal occupation. Reaching Bragg's headquarters on Missionary Ridge, October 9, he conferred in private with the general, who unburdened himself of a great many woes by placing the blame for them on his subordinates; regretfully declined the proffered services of Pemberton as a replacement for Polk, though he was still unwilling to restore the latter to duty; and, in conclusion, submitted his resignation as commander of the Army of Tennessee. This Davis refused, not wanting to disparage the abilities of the only man under whom a Confederate army had won a substantial victory since the death of Stonewall Jackson, back in May. That evening he presided over a council of war attended by Bragg and his corps commanders, Longstreet, Hill, Buckner, and Cheatham, who had taken over from Polk, pending the outcome of the bishop's current set- to with his chief. After what Davis later described as "a discussion of various programmes, mingled with retrospective remarks on the events attending and succeeding the battle of Chickamauga"-in the course of which he continued his efforts "to be serviceable in harmonizing some of the difficulties"-he inquired whether anyone had any further suggestions. Whereupon Longstreet spoke up. Bragg, he said, "could be of greater service elsewhere than at the head of the Army of Tennessee."

An embarra.s.sing silence followed: embarra.s.sing at any rate to Bragg, who looked neither left nor right, as well as to Davis, who after all had come here to compose differences, not to create scenes that would enlarge them. After a time, however, he asked the other generals how they felt about the matter, and all replied that they agreed with what had just been said-particularly Hill, who seemed to relish the opportunity this afforded for an airing of his views. Bragg sat immobile through the painful scene, his dark-browed face expressionless. Without giving any opinion of his own, Davis at last adjourned the council. But next day, when he sounded Longstreet on his willingness to accept the command in place of Bragg, the Georgian declined. "In my judgment," he explained later, "our last opportunity was gone when we failed to follow the success at Chickamauga, and capture or disperse the Union army, and it could not be just to the service or myself to call me to a position of such responsibility." He had, however, a suggestion: Joseph E. Johnston. Davis bridled at the name, which Longstreet said "only served to increase his displeasure, and his severe rebuke." This in turn caused Old Peter to tender his resignation, but Davis, as he said, "was not minded to accept that solution to the premise." At the close of the interview, Longstreet afterwards wrote, "the President walked as far as the gate, gave me his hand in his usual warm grasp, and dismissed me with his gracious smile; but a bitter look lurking about its margin, and the ground-swell, admonished me that the clouds were gathering about headquarters of the First Corps even faster than those that told the doom of the Southern cause."

If Davis was pained, if a bitter look did lurk in fact about the margin of his smile, it was small wonder; for he was being required to deal with a problem which came more and more to seem insoluble. Though Bragg's subordinates, or former subordinates, all agreed that he should be removed, none of those who were qualified was willing to take his place. First Longstreet, then Hardee, on being questioned, replied that they did not want the larger responsibility, while Polk and Hill, Buckner and Cheatham, either through demonstrated shortcomings in the case of the former pair or lack of experience in the latter, were plainly unqualified. Lee had been suggested, but had made it clear that he preferred to remain in Virginia, where there could be no doubt he was needed. Joe Johnston, on the other hand, had once been offered the command and once been ordered to it, and both times had refused, protesting that Bragg was the best man for the post. Besides, if past performance was any indication of what could be expected from a general, to appoint Johnston would be to abandon all hope of an aggressive campaign against the cooped-up Federals.... Davis thought the matter over for three days, and then on October 13 announced his decision in the form of a note to Bragg: "Regretting that the expectations which induced the a.s.signment of that gallant officer to this army have not been realized, you are authorized to relieve Lieutenant General D. H. Hill from further duty with your command." It had been obvious from the outset that one of the two North Carolinians would have to go. Now Davis had made his choice. Bragg would remain as commander of the army, and Hill-an accomplished hater, with a sharp tongue he was never slow to use on all who crossed him, including now the President-would return to his home state.

In addition to concerning himself with this command decision, in which Bragg emerged the winner more by default than by virtue of his claim, Davis also inspected the defenses, reviewed the troops, and held strategy conferences for the purpose of learning what course of action the generals thought the army now should take. Basically, Bragg was in favor of doing nothing more than holding what he had; that is, of keeping the Federals penned up in the town until starvation obliged them to surrender. He felt sure that this would be the outcome, and he said so, not only now but later, in his report. "Possessed of the shortest road to the depot of the enemy, and the one by which reinforcements must reach him," he would still maintain in late December, "we held him at our mercy, and his destruction was only a question of time." When Davis expressed dissatisfaction with his apparent lack of aggressiveness, Bragg came up with an alternate plan, suggested to him earlier that week in a letter from Beauregard, who, as was often the case when he had time on his hands-Gillmore and Dahlgren were lying idle just then, licking the wounds they had suffered in the course of their recent and nearly fruitless exertions, outside and just inside Charleston harbor-had turned his mind to grand-scale operations. In Virginia and elsewhere the Confederates should hold strictly to the defensive, he said, so that Bragg could be reinforced by 35,000 troops, mainly from Lee, in order to cross the Tennessee, flank the bluecoats out of Chattanooga, and crush them in an all-out showdown battle; after which, he went on, Bragg could a.s.sist Lee in administering the same treatment to Meade, just outside Washington. He suggested, though, that the source of the plan be kept secret, lest the President be prejudiced against it in advance by his known dislike of its originator. "What I desire is our success," Old Bory wrote. "I care not who gets the credit." So Bragg at this point, being pressed for aggressive notions, offered the program as his own, expanding it slightly by proposing that a crossing be made well upstream for a descent on the Federal rear by way of Walden's Ridge. Davis listened with interest, Bragg informed Beauregard, finding merit in the suggestion; he "admitted its worth and was inclined to adopt it, only"-here was the catch; here the Creole's spirits took a drop-"he could not reduce General Lee's army." That disposed of the scheme Bragg advanced as his own, and the true author's hopes went glimmering.

Longstreet too had an alternate plan, however, which was not greatly different except that it involved no reinforcements and called for a move in the opposite direction. He proposed a change of base to Rome, for added security, and a crossing in force at Bridgeport; a move, he said, "that would cut the enemy's rearward line, interrupt his supply train, put us between his army at Chattanooga and the reinforcements moving to join him, and force him to precipitate battle or retreat." Davis liked the sound of this much better, largely because it had the virtue of economy in attempting the same purpose. Besides, he knew only too well the danger inherent in waiting idly outside the town while Yankee ingenuity went to work on the very problems for which it was best suited. Bragg concurring, albeit with hesitation, the President hopefully ordered the adoption of Old Peter's proposal and adjourned the conference.

So far, he had not addressed the troops. In fact he had declined to do so on his arrival five days ago, when he was welcomed at Chickamauga Station by a crowd of soldiers who called for a speech as he mounted his horse for the ride to army headquarters. "Man never spoke as you did on the field of Chickamauga," Davis told them, lifting his hat in return salute, "and in your presence I dare not speak. Yours is the voice that will win the independence of your country and strike terror to the heart of a ruthless foe." Now that he had toured their camps, however, and had seen for himself how rife the discontent was, he changed his mind and did what he had said he dared not do. Referring to the men before him as "defenders of the heart of our territory," he a.s.sured them that "your movements have been the object of intensest anxiety. The hopes of our cause greatly depend upon you, and happy it is that all can securely rely upon your achieving whatever, under the blessing of Providence, human power can effect." This said, he returned to his primary task of pouring oil on troubled waters, speaking not only to the troops themselves, but also to their officers, particularly those of lofty rank. "When the war shall have ended," he declared, "the highest meed of praise will be due, and probably given, to him who has claimed least for himself in proportion to the service he has rendered, and the bitterest self-reproach which may hereafter haunt the memory of anyone will be to him who has allowed selfish aspiration to prevail over the desire for the public good.... He who sows the seeds of discontent and distrust prepares for the harvest of slaughter and defeat. To zeal you have added gallantry, to gallantry, energy; to energy, fort.i.tude. Crown these with harmony, due subordination, and cheerful support of lawful authority, that the measure of your duty may be full." He ended with a prayer "that our Heavenly Father may cover you with the shield of his protection in the hours of battle, and endow you with the virtues which will close your trials in victory complete."

These words were spoken on October 14, the date of A. P. Hill's sudden and b.l.o.o.d.y repulse at Bristoe Station. Davis stayed on for three more days, continuing his efforts to promote "harmony, due subordination, and cheerful support of lawful authority" at all levels in the strife-torn Army of Tennessee; then on October 17-the date Stanton overtook Grant at Indianapolis-ended his eight-day visit by reboarding the train to continue his journey south for an inspection of the Mobile defenses. As he left he was a.s.sured by Bragg that Longstreet's plan for a crossing of the Tennessee on the Federal right at Bridgeport would be undertaken as soon as the troops could be gotten ready to advance.

Two days later, after inspecting a cannon foundry and other manufacturing installations at Selma, Alabama, he addressed a large crowd from his hotel balcony, a.s.serting that if the "non-conscripts" would volunteer for garrison duty, and thus release more regular troops for service in the field, "we can crush Rosecrans and be ready with the return of spring to drive the enemy from our borders. The defeat of Rosecrans," he added, swept along by the enthusiasm his words had aroused-and unaware, of course, that Rosecrans would be relieved that day by a wire from Grant in Louisville-"will practically end the war." From Selma he proceeded to Demopolis, where he crossed the Tombigbee River and continued west across the Mississippi line to Meridian for a visit with his septuagenarian brother at nearby Lauderdale Springs. The war had been hard on Joseph Davis. Formerly one of the state's wealthiest planters, he had had to move twice already to escape the advancing Federals, not counting refugee stops along the way, and now his wife lay dying in a dilapidated house, having conserved her ebbing strength for one last glimpse of "Brother Jeff." The weary President was distressed by what he saw here, for to him it represented what was likely to happen to all his people, kin and un-kin, if the South failed in its bid for independence. Nevertheless he managed, in the course of his stay in Meridian, to work out a solution to another th.o.r.n.y problem of command. On October 23-while Grant rode south down Walden's Ridge to enter Chattanooga before nightfall-he wired instructions for Bragg and Johnston, in their now separate departments, to have Polk and Hardee swap jobs and commanders, the latter to take charge of the former's corps in the Army of Tennessee, while the bishop took over the Georgian's duties at the camp for recruitment and instruction near Demopolis. This done, Davis left next morning for Mobile. After a tour of inspection with Major General Dabney H. Maury, commander of the city's defenses, he returned to the Battle House and spoke as he had done at Selma the week before, emphasizing that "those who remain at home, not less than those in arms, have their duties to perform. Each of all can encourage the spirit which can bring success," he told his listeners, adding that "men using the opportunities given by war to make fortunes will be detested by their posterity." A local reporter, impressed by the Chief Executive's "remarkably clear enunciation," observed that, though he spoke "without the slightest apparent effort, his words penetrated far down the street and were heard distinctly by most of the vast crowd gathered on the occasion."

Davis remained in Mobile over Sunday, October 25-cheered by news of the Buckland Races, which Stuart had staged on Monday, but disappointed by Bragg's report that rain had delayed his preparations for a crossing at Bridgeport, as well as by the returns from Ohio's second-Tuesday elections, held just under two weeks ago, which showed that Lincoln's hard-war candidates had defeated Vallandigham and his Golden Circle friends-then left the following day for Montgomery, where he had arranged to have Forrest board the train for a conference en route to Atlanta. Valuing the Tennessean's abilities, the Commander in Chief not only approved his transfer to North Mississippi, where he would have authority "to raise and organize as many troops for the Confederate service as he finds practicable," but also directed that Bragg send the cavalryman a two-battalion cadre of his veteran troopers, plus Morton's battery, and recommended to Congress his promotion to major general. Forrest left the train at Atlanta, pleased to be taking up new duties as an independent commander in a region he knew well; but for his erstwhile traveling companion there was disturbing news from the Chattanooga theater. While Bragg had been waiting for the weather to clear before he moved against the enemy right, the Federals, with no apparent concern for mud and rain, had antic.i.p.ated him in that direction by crossing the river themselves. Aggressive as always, Davis saw in this a chance for offensive action. "It is reported here that the enemy are crossing at Bridgeport," he wired Bragg on the 29th. "If so it may give you the opportunity to beat the detachment moving up to reinforce Rosecrans as was contemplated.... You will be able to antic.i.p.ate him, and strike with the advantage of fighting him in detail." It had become increasingly evident, though, that weather was a pretense; that Bragg was favoring his preference for the defensive, despite a presidential warning, repeated today, that "the period most favorable for actual operations is rapidly pa.s.sing away, and the consideration of supplies presses upon you the necessity to recover as much as you can of the country before you." Anxious that something be done at once, in Middle or East Tennessee, to justify Longstreet's prolonged absence from Virginia-where Lee was facing grievous odds, having fallen back to the line of the Rappahannock, and might need him at any moment-Davis added: "In this connection it has occurred to me that if the operations on your left should be delayed, or not be of prime importance, that you might advantageously a.s.sign General Longstreet with his two divisions to the task of expelling Burnside and thus place him in position, according to circ.u.mstances, to hasten or delay his return to the army of General Lee."

Much might come of either of these suggestions: the destruction of the blue column that had ventured across the river, within easy reach of the Confederate left, or the expulsion of Burnside from Knoxville and East Tennessee, far upstream on the right, "to recover that country and re-establish communications with Virginia." But for the present, with whatever patience he could muster while waiting for Bragg to make up his mind and move in one direction or the other, Davis resumed his journey back to the capital by way of Savannah and Charleston, neither of which he had visited since the outbreak of the war. He was welcomed to the former place on Halloween with an exuberant torchlight procession, followed by a reception at the Masonic Hall. A young matron who stood in line for a handshake wrote her soldier brother that she and her friends "were much pleased with the affability of the President. He has a good, mild, pleasant face," she added, "and, altogether, looks like a President of our struggling country should look-careworn and thoughtful, and firm, and quiet."

His affability came under a strain next morning, however, when Bragg announced the failure of the attempted counterstroke on his left, three nights ago at Wauhatchie, and placed the blame on Old Peter for having used an inadequate force ineptly. "The result related is a bitter disappointment," Davis replied, "as my expectations were sanguine that the enemy, by throwing across the Tennessee his force at Bridgeport, had ensured the success of the operation suggested by General Longstreet, and confided to his execution." In any case, the way was still open for an advance around the Federal right, and he hoped it would be taken, though he was obliged as always to leave the final decision to the commander on the scene. As for himself, he faced an ordeal of his own the following day in Charleston, where Beauregard was in command and the Rhetts had been attacking him, almost without remission, for the past two years in their Mercury. As his train drew near the station, November 2, he heard the booming of guns being fired in his honor, and when the presidential car lurched to a stop beside the platform a welcoming committee came aboard. In the lead were Beauregard, his aide and amanuensis Colonel Thomas Jordan, and Robert Barnwell Rhett, a colonel too. As a later observer put it, Davis must have "wondered how the visit would turn out when the first three hands raised in salute to him belonged to three enemies." Perhaps it was this that threw him off his stride for the first time in the course of the autumn journey he had undertaken in the hope of harmonizing discord. At any rate, inadvertently or on purpose, here today in South Carolina he did his office, his country, and his cause the worst disservice he had done since he sent the curt, slashing note in reply to Joe Johnston's six-page letter of protest at being ranked behind Lee and the other Johnston, more than two years ago in Virginia. What made it worse in this case was that he not only pa.s.sed up an easy chance to heal, he actually widened a dangerous rift, and he did so with nearly as curt a slash as he had used before, except that this time the technique involved omission.

Not that the citizens themselves were cold or unfriendly. "The streets along the line of procession were thronged with people anxious to get a look at the President," a Courier reporter wrote. "The men cheered and the ladies waved their handkerchiefs in token of recognition." Proud of their resistance to Du Pont's and Dahlgren's iron fleet, as well as of their standing up to Gillmore's long-range sh.e.l.ling-which had recently begun anew, after a respite of about a month-they were pleased that the Chief Executive had come to praise their valor and share their danger. Flags were draped across the fronts of homes and buildings, and garlands of laurel stretched from the city hall to the courthouse, supporting a large banner that bid him welcome. This was Davis's first Charleston visit since the spring of 1850, when he had accompanied the body of John C. Calhoun from Washington to its grave in St Philip's churchyard, and he recalled that sad occasion when he spoke today from the portico of the city hall. In saluting the defenders of Sumter, he had special praise for the fort's commander, Major Stephen Elliott, and predicted that if the Federals ever took the city they would find no more than a "ma.s.s of rubbish," so determined were its people in their choice of whether to "leave it a heap of ruins or a prey for Yankee spoils." ("Ruins! Ruins!" the crowd shouted.) "Let us trust to our commanding general, to those having the charge and responsibilities of our affairs," Davis said, with a sidelong glance at Beauregard, and he added a note of caution, as he had done in all his speeches this past month: "It is by united effort, by fraternal feeling, by harmonious co-operation, by casting away all personal considerations ... that our success is to be achieved. He who would now seek to drag down him who is struggling, if not a traitor, is first cousin to one; for he is striking the most deadly blows that can be [struck]. He who would attempt to promote his own personal ends ... is not worthy of the Confederate liberty for which we are fighting." In closing, he thanked the people and a.s.sured them of his prayers "for each and all, and above all for the sacred soil of Charleston."

At the reception held afterwards in the council chamber, people inquired of one another whether they had noticed that the President, after singling out Major Elliott for praise, not only had failed to congratulate Beauregard for his skillful defense of the city by land and water, but also had not mentioned him by name. Indeed, except for that one sidelong reference to "our commanding general," when the crowd was advised to put its trust in those in charge, Old Bory might as well not have been in Charleston at all, so far as Davis was concerned. Most of those present had noted this omission, which could scarcely have been anything but intentional, it seemed to them, on the part of a man as attentive to the amenities as the President normally was. Certainly Beauregard himself had felt the slight, and it was observed that he did not attend a dinner given that evening in Davis's honor by former governor William Aiken in his house on Wragg's Square. In point of fact, the general had already declined an invitation two days earlier. "It would afford me much pleasure to dine with you," he had told Aiken, "but candor requires me to inform you that my relations with the President being strictly official, I cannot partic.i.p.ate in any act of politeness which might make him suppose otherwise." However, even if he had accepted earlier, he most likely would not have attended a dinner honoring a man who had just given him what amounted to a cut direct. Hard on the heels of the brief reference to him in the speech, moreover, had come the allusion to complainers as cousins to traitors, and this perhaps infuriated the Creole worst of all, touching him as it did where he was tender. Unburdening his feelings to a friend, he protested that Davis had "done more than if he had thrust a fratricidal dagger into my heart! he has killed my enthusiasm for our holy cause! ... May G.o.d forgive him," he added; "I fear I shall not have charity enough to pardon him."

Although Davis saw little or nothing of the general out of hours, according to a friendly diarist he spent a pleasant week as the former governor's house guest, "Beauregard, Rhetts, Jordan to the contrary notwithstanding.... Mr Aiken's perfect old Carolina style of living delighted him," the diarist noted, not only because of "those old grey-haired darkies and their automatic, noiseless perfection of training," but also because it afforded him the leisure, while resting from the rigors of his journey, to hear firsthand accounts of the unsuccessful but persistent siege-in-progress. Gillmore had resumed his bombardment from c.u.mmings Point a week ago, on October 26, and while at first it had been as furious as before, it presently slacked off to an intermittent sh.e.l.ling. An occasional big incendiary projectile was flung at Charleston, but mostly he concentrated his attention on Sumter, chipping away at the upper casemates until it began to seem to observers that the fort, daily reduced in height as debris from the ramparts slid down the outer walls, was sinking slowly beneath the choppy surface of the harbor. The defenders were on the alert for another small-boat a.s.sault, but none was attempted; Gillmore and Dahlgren, it was said, were unwilling to risk a recurrence of the previous fiasco, though each kept insisting that the other should try his hand at reducing the ugly thing. To the Confederates, however, the squat, battered pentagon was a symbol of their long-odds resistance, and as such it took on a strange beauty. An engineer captain wrote home of the feelings aroused by the sight of its rugged outline against the night sky, lanterns gleaming in unseen hands as work crews piled sandbags on the rubble, sentinels huddled for warmth over small fires in the casemates. "That ruin is beautiful," he declared, and added: "But it is more than this, it is emblematic also.... Is it not in some respects an image of the human soul, once ruined by the fall, yet with gleams of beauty and energetic striving after strength, surrounded by dangers and watching, against its foes?"

Nor, as might have been expected with the resourceful Beauregard in charge, had the garrison's efforts been limited entirely to the defensive. Using money donated for the purpose by Charlestonians, the general had had designed and built a cigar-shaped torpedo boat, twenty feet long and five feet wide, powered by a small engine and equipped with a ten-foot spar that had at its bulbous tip a 75-pound charge of powder, primed to explode when one of its four percussion nipples came in contact with anything solid, such as the iron side of a ship. Manned by a crew of four-captain and pilot, engineer and fireman-she was christened David and sent forth after sunset, October 5, to try her luck on the blockading squadron just across the bar. Her chosen Goliath was the outsized New Ironsides, the Yankee flagship that had escaped destruction back in April when the boiler-torpedo, over which Du Pont unwittingly stopped her during his attack, failed to detonate. Undetected by enemy lookouts, the David made contact with her spar-tip charge six feet below the Ironsides' waterline, but the resultant explosion threw up a great column of water that doused the little vessel's fires when it came down and nearly swamped her. As she drifted powerless out to sea, the jolted bluejackets on the ironclad's deck opened on her with a heavy fire of musketry and grape, prompting all four of her crew to go over the side. Two of these were picked up by the Federals, the captain as he paddled about in the darkness and the fireman when he was found clinging next morning to the Ironsides' rudder; they were clapped in irons and later sent North by Dahlgren to be tried for employing a weapon not sanctioned by civilized nations. Nothing came of that, however; they presently were exchanged, for the captain and a seaman from a captured Union gunboat, and sent back to Charleston. The other two had been there all along. Returning to the half-swamped David after the firing stopped, the pilot found that the engineer had been clinging to her all this time because he could not swim. They relighted her fires with a bull's-eye lantern and, eluding searchers on all sides, steamed back into the harbor before dawn. As for the New Ironsides, she had not been seriously damaged, the main force of the underwater explosion having fortunately been absorbed by one of her inner bulkheads. After a trip down to Port Royal for repairs to a few leaky seams, she soon returned to duty with the squadron-though from this time on, it was observed, her crew was quick to sound the alarm and open fire whenever a drifting log or a floating patch of seaweed, or less comically an incautious friendly longboat, happened near her in the dark.

Firsthand knowledge of such events as this brief sortie by the David, even though it failed in its purpose, and of such reactions to destruction as those of the engineer captain to the ruins of Sumter, even though no response could be made to the diurnal pounding, served to strengthen Davis's conviction that the South could never be subdued, no matter how much of its apparently limitless wealth and strength the North expended and exerted in its attempt to bring her to her knees; Charleston, for him, was proof enough that the unconquerable spirit of his people could never be humbled, despite the odds and the malignity, as it seemed to him, with which they were brought to bear. He stayed through November 8-his fifth Sunday away from the national capital and his wife and children-then returned the following day to the Old Dominion. Lee, he learned on arrival, was falling back across the Rapidan, having suffered a double reversal two nights ago at Kelly's Ford and Rappahannock Bridge. Davis did not doubt that the Virginian would be able to hold this new river line, whatever had happened along the old one; his confidence in Lee was complete. His concern was more for what might happen around Chattanooga, for he now was informed that Bragg, while continuing to maintain that the weather prevented a strike at the newly opened Federal supply line on his immediate left, had been quick to adopt the suggestion that Longstreet be sent against Burnside, far off on his right, thereby reducing his army by one fourth.

On the face of it, that did not seem too risky, considering the great natural strength of his position, but others as well as Davis saw the danger in that direction, not only to Bragg but also to the authority that had backed him in the recent intramural crisis. Davis had everywhere been "received with cheers" on his journey, a War Department diarist observed. "His austerity and inflexibility have been relaxed, and he has made popular speeches wherever he has gone.... The press, a portion rather, praises the President for his carefulness in making a tour of the armies and forts south of us; but as he retained Bragg in command, how soon the tune would change if Bragg should meet with a disaster!" No one understood this better than Davis, who still believed that the best defense against a Federal a.s.sault, even upon so impregnable a position as the one held by the Army of Tennessee, would be for Bragg to knock the enemy in his immediate front off balance with an offensive of his own, and this seemed all the more the proper course now that it was known that the man in command at Chattanooga was Grant, who had made the worst sort of trouble for the Confederacy almost everywhere he had been sent, so far in the war. Accordingly, two days after his return to Richmond, being still immersed in a ma.s.s of paperwork collected in his absence, Davis had Custis Lee send Bragg a reminder of this point of view. "His Excellency regrets that the weather and condition of the roads have suspended the movement [on your left]," Lee wired, "but hopes that such obstacles to your plans will not long obstruct them. He feels a.s.sured that you will not allow the enemy to get up all his reinforcements before striking him, if it can be avoided." The President, Lee added, stressing by repet.i.tion the danger in delay, "does not deem it necessary to call your attention to the importance of doing whatever is to be done before the enemy can collect his forces, as the longer the time given him for this purpose, the greater will be the disparity in numbers."

Unlike Davis, who twice in the past eleven months had visited every Confederate state east of the Mississippi except Florida and Louisiana, addressing crowds along the way and calling for national unity in them all, Lincoln in two and one half years-aside, that is, from four quick trips on army business: once to confer with Winfield Scott at West Point, twice to see McClellan, on the James and the Antietam, and once to visit with Joe Hooker on the Rappahannock line-had been no farther than a carriage ride from the White House. He had made no speeches on any of the exceptional occasions, being strictly concerned with military affairs, and for the most part even the citizens of Washington had not known he was gone until after he returned. This was not to say that he had not concerned himself with national unity or that he had made no appeals to the people in his efforts to achieve it; he had indeed, and repeatedly, in messages to Congress, in proclamations, and in public and private letters to individuals and inst.i.tutions. One of the most successful of these had been his late-August letter to James Conkling, ostensibly an expression of regret that he was unable to attend a rally of "unconditional Union men" in his home town of Springfield, but actually a stump speech to be delivered by proxy at the meeting. John Murray Forbes, a prominent Boston businessman, had been so impressed with the arguments therein advanced in support of the government's views on the Negro question-"a plain letter to plain people," he called it-that he wrote directly to Lincoln in mid-September, suggesting that he also set the public mind aright on what Forbes considered the true issue of the war. "Our friends abroad see it," he declared; "John Bright and his glorious band of European republicans see that we are fighting for Democracy, or (to get rid of the technical name) for liberal inst.i.tutions.... My suggestion then is that you should seize an early opportunity, and any subsequent chance, to teach your great audience of plain people that the war is not North against South, but the People against the Aristocrats. If you can place this in the same strong light that you have the Negro question, you will settle it in men's minds as you have that."

Lincoln filed the letter in his desk and in his mind, and seven weeks later, on November 2, acting on the suggestion that he "seize an early opportunity," accepted an invitation to attend the dedication of a new cemetery at Gettysburg for the men who had fallen there in the July battle. The date, November 19, was less than three weeks off, and the reason for this lateness on the part of the committee was that he had been an afterthought, its original intention having been to emphasize the states, which were sharing the expenses of the project, not the nation. Besides, even after the thought occurred that it might be a good idea to invite the President, some doubt had been expressed "as to his ability to speak upon such a grave and solemn occasion." However, since the princ.i.p.al speaker, the distinguished orator Edward Everett of Ma.s.sachusetts, had been chosen six weeks earlier, it was decided-as Lincoln was told in a covering letter, stressing that the ceremonies would "doubtless be very imposing and solemnly impressive"-to ask him to attend in a rather minor capacity: "It is the desire that after the oration, you, as Chief Executive of the nation, formally set apart these grounds to their sacred use by a few appropriate remarks." Duly admonished to be on his good behavior, to avoid both length and levity, Lincoln accepted the invitation, along with these implied conditions, on the day it was received.

He had not intended to crack any jokes in the first place, at least not at the ceremony itself, though in point of fact he was in higher spirits nowadays than he had been for months. For one thing, the military outlook-badly blurred by the effects of the heavy body blow Bragg landed at Chickamauga in mid-September-had improved greatly in the past ten days: specifically since October 23, when Grant rode into Chattanooga and set to work in his characteristic fashion, opening the Cracker Line and sustaining it with a victory in the night action at Wauhatchie, all within a week of his arrival, then wound up by notifying Halleck that "preparations may commence for offensive operations." If Banks had been thwarted so far in his designs on coastal Texas, that might be taken as a temporary setback, amply balanced in the far-western theater by Steele's success, on the heels of his Little Rock triumph, in driving the rebels out of Pine Bluff on October 25. Similarly, in the eastern theater, though Gillmore and Dahlgren had made but a small impression down in Charleston harbor, the news from close at hand in Virginia was considerably improved. Lee was on the backtrack from Mana.s.sas, presumably chastened by his repulse at Bristoe Station, and Meade was moving south again, rebuilding the wrecked railroad as he went. Lincoln now felt a good deal kindlier toward the Pennsylvanian than he had done in the weeks immediately following Gettysburg. If Meade had much of the exasperating caution that had characterized McClellan in the presence of the enemy, at least he was no bl.u.s.terer like Pope or blunderer like Burnside, and despite his unfortunate snapping-turtle disposition he did not seem to come unglued under pressure, as McDowell and Hooker had tended to do and done. All in all, though it was evident that he was not the killer-arithmetician his Commander in Chief was seeking, the impression was that he would do till the real thing came along, and this estimate was heightened within another week, when he overtook Lee on the line of the Rappahannock, administered a double dose of what he had given him earlier at Bristoe, and drove him back across the Rapidan. "The signs look better," Lincoln had said in closing his letter to Conkling in late August. Now in November, reviewing the over-all military situation that had been disrupted by Chickamauga and readjusted since, he might have amended this to: "The signs look even better."

But it was on the political front that the news was best of all. Last year's congressional elections had been a bitter pill to swallow, but in choking it down, the Administration had learned much that could be applied in the future. For one thing, there was the matter of names. "Republican" having come to be something of an epithet in certain sections of the country, the decision was made to run this year's pro-Lincoln candidates under the banner of the National Union Party, thus to attract the votes of "loyal" Democrats. For another, with the enthusiastic co-operation of Stanton in the War Department, there were uses to which the army could be put: especially in doubtful states, where whole regiments could be furloughed home to cast their ballots, while individual squads and platoons could be a.s.signed to maintain order at the polls and a.s.sist the local authorities in administering oaths of loyalty, past as well as present, required in several border states before a citizen could enter a voting booth. New England had gone solidly Republican in the spring. Then in August, with the help of considerable maneuvering along the lines described above, the President was pleased to note that his native Kentucky had "gone very strongly right." Tennessee followed suit, and so, presently, did all but one of the rest of the states that held elections in the fall. Only in New Jersey, where the organization was weak, did the "unconditional Unionists" lose ground. Everywhere else the outcome exceeded party expectations, particularly in Pennsylvania, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, and Maryland, in all of which the situation had been judged to be no better than touch-and-go. Ohio, where Vallandigham was opposed by John Brough in the race for governor, balloted on October 13; Lincoln said that he felt more anxious than he had done three years ago, when he himself had run. He need not have worried. With the help of 41,000 soldier votes, as compared to 2000 for Vallandigham, Brough won by a majority of 100,000. "Glory to G.o.d in the highest," Lincoln wired; "Ohio has saved the Nation." Four days later, having got this worry out of the way, he celebrated substantially by issuing another call for "300,000 more." The states were to raise whatever number of troops they could by volunteering, then complete their quotas by drafting men "to reinforce our victorious armies in the field," as the proclamation put it, "and bring our needful military operations to a prosperous end, thus closing forever the fountains of sedition and civil war."

News that the President would appear at Gettysburg reached the papers soon after his acceptance of the tardy invitation, and their reactions varied from bland to indignant, hostile editors protesting that a ceremony intended to honor fallen heroes was no proper occasion for what could only be a partisan appeal. Certain prominent Republicans, on the other hand, professed to believe it was no great matter, one way or the other, since Lincoln was by now a political cipher anyhow, a "dead card" in the party deck. "Let the dead bury the dead," Thaddeus Stevens quipped when asked for an opinion on what was about to happen just outside the little college town where he once had practiced law and still owned property. Lincoln held to his intention to attend the ceremonies, despite the quips and adverse comments in and out of print. He was, he remarked in another connection this week, not much upset by anything said about him, especially in the papers. "These comments const.i.tute a fair specimen of what has occurred to me through life. I have endured a great deal of ridicule without much malice, and have received a great deal of kindness not quite free from ridicule. I am used to it." Meanwhile, in the scant period between the tendering of the invitation and the date for his departure, there was not much time for composing his thoughts, let alone for setting them down on paper. In addition to the usual encroachments by job- and favor-seekers, there was the wedding of Chase's sprightly daughter Kate to wealthy young Senator William Sprague of Rhode Island, the most brilliant social affair to be held in Washington in the nearly three years since the Southerners left the District; there was an urgent visit by the high-powered New York politician Thurlow Weed, who came with a plan for ending the war by means of a ninety-day armistice, a scheme that had to be heard in full and then rejected tactfully, lest Weed be offended into an enmity the cause could not afford; there was the necessity for day-to-day work on the annual year-end message to Congress, which it would not do to put off till the last minute, though the last minute was in fact about at hand already. All this there was, and more, much more: with the result that by the time the departure date came round, November 18, Lincoln had done little more than jot down a few notes on what he intended to say next day in Pennsylvania. Worst of all, in the way of distraction, Tad was sick with some feverish ailment the doctors could not identify, and Mrs Lincoln was near hysterics, remembering Willie's death, under similar circ.u.mstances, twenty months ago in this same house. But Lincoln did not let even this interfere with his plans and promise. The four-car special, carrying the President and three of his cabinet members-Seward, Blair, and Usher; the others had declined, pleading the press of business-his two secretaries, officers of the army and navy, his friend Ward Lamon, and the French and Italian ministers, left the capital around noon. Lincoln sat for a time with the others in a drawing room at the back of the rear coach, swapping stories for an hour or so, and then, as the train approached Hanover Junction, excused himself to retire to the privacy of his compartment at the other end of the car. "Gentlemen, this is all very pleasant," he said, "but the people will expect me to say something to them tomorrow, and I must give the matter some thought."

Arriving at sundown, he went to the home of Judge David Wills, on the town square, where he and Everett and Governor Curtin would spend the night. The streets and all the available beds were crowded, visitors having come pouring in for tomorrow's ceremonies, notables and nondescripts alike, many of them with no place to sleep and most of them apparently past caring. Accompanied by a band, a large group roamed about in the early dark to serenade the visiting dignitaries, including the President. He came out at last and gave them one of those brief speeches, the burden of which was that he had nothing to say. "In my position it is somewhat important that I should not say foolish things," he began. "-If you can help it!" a voice called up, and Lincoln took his cue from that: "It very often happens that the only way to help it is to say nothing at all. Believing that is my present condition this evening, I must beg you to excuse me from addressing you further." Unsatisfied, the crowd proceeded next door and called for Seward, who did better by them, though this still was evidently far from enough, since they serenaded five more speakers before calling it a night. Lincoln by then had completed the working draft of tomorrow's address and gone to bed, greatly relieved by a wire from Stanton pa.s.sing along a message from Mrs Lincoln that Tad was much improved.

By morning the crowd had swelled to 15,000, most of whom were on the prowl about the town in search of breakfast or about the surrounding fields in search of relics, an oyster-colored minnie ball, a tarnished b.u.t.ton, a fragment of sh.e.l.l that might or might not have killed a man. In any event, whatever disappointments there were for the hungry, the pickings were good for the souvenir hunters, for it was later calculated that 569 tons of ammunition had been expended in the course of the three-day battle. Coffins were much in evidence, too, though the work of reinterring the dead-at $1.59 a body-had been suspended for the solemn occasion now at hand. At 10 o'clock the procession began to form on the square, marshaled by Lamon and led by the President on horseback. An hour later it began to move, in what one witness referred to as "an orphanly sort of way," toward Cemetery Hill, where the ceremonies would be held. Lincoln sat erect at first, wearing a black suit, a high silk hat, and white gloves, but presently he slumped in the saddle, arms limp and head bent forward in deep thought, while behind him rode or walked the governors of six of the eighteen partic.i.p.ating states, several generals, including Doubleday and Gibbon, and a number of congressmen, as well as the officials who had come up with him on the train. Within fifteen or twenty minutes these various dignitaries had taken their places on the crowded platform, and after a wait for Everett, who was late, the proceedings opened at noon with a prayer by the House chaplain, following which the princ.i.p.al speaker was introduced. "Mr President," he said with a bow, tall and white-haired, just under seventy years of age, a former governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, minister to England for John Tyler, president of Harvard, successor to Daniel Webster as Secretary of State under Millard Fillmore, and in 1860 John Bell's running mate on the Const.i.tutional Union ticket, which had carried Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. "Mr Everett," Lincoln replied, and the orator launched forthwith into his address.

"Standing beneath this serene sky," with "the mighty Alleghenies dimly towering" before him, Everett raised his "poor voice to break the eloquent silence of G.o.d and Nature." He did so for two hours by the clock, having informed the committee beforehand that the occasion was "not to be dismissed with a few sentimental or patriotic commonplaces." Nor was it. He outlined the beginning of the war, reviewed the furious three-day action here, discussed and denounced the doctrine of state sovereignty, lacing his eloquence with historical and cla.s.sical allusions, and came at last to a quotation from Pericles: "The whole earth is the sepulchre of ill.u.s.trious men." Recognizing the advent of the peroration because he had been given advance proofs of the address, Lincoln took from his coat pocket a fair copy he had made of his own speech that morning, put on his steel-bowed spectacles, and read it through while Everett drew to a close, head back-flung, and p.r.o.nounced the final sentence in a voice that had not faltered once in the whole two hours: "Down to the latest period of recorded time, in the glorious annals of our common country there will be no brighter page than that which relates the Battles of Gettysburg." Amid prolonged applause he took his seat, and after the Baltimore Glee Club had sung an ode composed for the occasion, Lamon p.r.o.nounced the words: "The President of the United States." Lincoln rose, and as a photographer began setting up his tripod and camera in front of the rostrum, delivered-in what a reporter called "a sharp, unmusical treble voice," but with what John Hay considered "more grace than is his wont"-the "few appropriate remarks" which the committee had said it desired of him "after the oration."

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of it as the final resting place of those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract." A polite scattering of applause was overridden at this point as Lincoln continued. "The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so n.o.bly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take incr