I could recount as striking traits in the character of Sherman, but in his presence I forbear to dwell upon them.

Yearly the soldiers' qualities of the principal officers who served in the Army of the Tennessee become more vivid and striking, until one wonders at the concentration of genius which distinguished this one division of the army. Their history is the history of the war. It does not require technical knowledge to understand this. The veriest schoolboy certifies to it. Logan, Howard, McPherson, Sheridan, Sherman, Grant - all of them were commanders of the Army of the Tennessee except Sheridan, and he was nurtured in that army. Blot them out, and the history of the war would read like another book. In a reunion of this Society we need not confine ourselves to celebrating the victories of those arbitrary divisions of regiments, brigades, divisions and corps which composed the Army of the Tennessee proper; for that army finally became an omnipresent power, directing every army, and wringing victories out of previous defeats. Grant went to the Army of the Potomac, and that army went to Richmond. Sheridan went to the Shenadoah valley, and Early went out of it. Sherman went to the Army of the Ohio and the Cumberland, and the Army of the Ohio and the Cumberland went conquering to the sea. Grand armies all, they only needed that genius which God sends rarely to men, but which He vouchsafed to us in our dire extremity, to lead them to mighty victories. So intimately is the Army of the Tennessee linked with the important movements of the war, that it is difficult to speak of a great victory in any part of the country, before a member of this Society, without danger of causing him to blush with conscious modesty and embarrassment. [Great laughter.]

We can almost claim Abraham Lincoln himself as a member of the Army of the Tennessee, for it was he who was so quick to recognize, reward and encourage the genius which that army developed. What a task was his! I often think that the loyal men at home had the hardest of the battle, after all. In the army all were agreed; at home it was one long, endless battle of words, there being no way, unfortunately, as Mr. Carlyle puts it, of proving an opponent logically defunct. But, with Mr. Lincoln especially, the life of a non-combatant was a trial to make the whole body sick and the whole heart faint. How he was beset

on every hand! Some of us thought we knew something about it at the time, but we are just beginning to realize that we had no conception of his sea of trouble.

We now know that his ability, his judgment, his patriotism, were questioned by the very men who should have been first to stand up in his defence. How it sounds now, to read in the private Memoirs of the then Commanding General, the expression of contempt for Mr. Lincoln, because the President showed him too much deference! How strange it sounds to hear, from the same source, these words: "It is sickening in the extreme, and makes me feel heavy at heart, when I see the weakness and unfitness of the poor beings who control the destinies of this great country!"-McClellan's own story, page 85.

This of Lincoln, Stanton, Seward and Chase. How amazed we are, indeed, to read from Stanton himself, expressions in the early part of the war, which he would have given worlds to recall later: "The imbecility of this administration culminated in that catastrophe," he writes alluding to Bull Run. "Irretrievable misfortune and national disgrace are to be added to the ruin of peaceful pursuits and national bankruptcy as the result of Lincoln's running the machine for five months.

"It is not unlikely that there will be some change in the war and navy departments, but none beyond these until Jefferson Davis comes in and turns the whole concern out."

And this from Mr. Greeley, unquestionably a sincere friend of the President, making it all the harder to bear. Thus he wrote:

"This is my seventh sleepless night-yours too doubtless-yet I think I shall not die, because I have no right to die, but to business. You are not considered a great man, and I am a hopelessly broken one. Can the rebels

be beaten after all that has occurred, and in view of the actual state of feeling caused by our late awful disaster. If they can, and it is your business to decide, write me that such is your judgment, so that I may know and do my duty. If they cannot be beaten-if our recent disaster is fatal-do not fear to sacrifice yourself to your country. The gloom in this city is funereal, for our dead at Bull Run were many, and they lie unburied yet. On every brow sits sullen, scorching, black despair."

There was much more of the same kind, all inspired by the fact that we had fought a battle in which we lost less than fifteen hundred men killed and wounded, and fourteen hundred prisoners, the rebels suffering about the same, a disaster" which would have excited no consternation during the last three years of the war.

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And yet here were great men talking about giving up hope, because of the loss of a single important battle. It went on so for years, the "scorching, black despair" only being relieved now and then by a big victory in the west. Wearily waiting for some corresponding light to the gloom in the east-hoping for movements which did not take place, the anxious strain upon the president was only relieved by that grim humor which sometimes came upon him in the most distressing seasons. As when sick of delay he one day sent his compliments to an officer of high rank, saying, if General Blank was not using his army, the President would like to borrow it for a battle. As if any army were a teakettle which ought to be made to boil.

And still the wine press was trodden with unassuaged anguish. Complaints by the newspapers, private letters from old friends full of sad reproaches and revelations of lost confidence. Quarrels and bickerings between the high military officials upon whom the fate of the Union seemed to depend. Betrayals of trust by those he had been educated to admire. Hints from those near him politically that perhaps the conduct of affairs better be trusted to them. Absolute discourtesy, at least on one occasion from one he had elevated to high rank, which he silently and pathetically bore. Charges that he was ignoring the democrats in selecting officers in the army. Counter charges that he was giving all the high places to men of that party. Accused of sympathizing with slavery on the one hand, and called a black abolitionist on the other. Oh! plain. patient, long suffering Lincoln! how he was tried, and how little he was known! How blind we are to greatness after all! How few there be who recognize the world's heroes until it is too late to be regarded as a discovery!

Added to these domestic worriments were those foreign complications which gave the President great anxiety, and which seemed destined more than once to involve us in such gigantic troubles abroad as to make success at home impossible. We had a right to expect sympathy from England, and even from France, for we were fighting against an oligarchy which aimed to establish an empire with slavery for its corner stone. But both these governments made haste to extend sympathy to the south. On the very day that our Minister reached London preceded by a request that the English government would defer action until he had been accorded a hearing, a proclamation appeared granting the rebels

belligerent rights. This had been done at the request of three commissioners, who had been received by the British government "unofficially" as Lord John Russell was pleased to term it. The action of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward in relation to this proceeding was at once so dignified and admirable as to constitute one of the brightest pages in our diplomatic history. We are all familiar now with the secret history of that correspondence. How the able but indignant protest of Mr. Seward was toned down by the hand of the judicious and far-seeing President, until it became at once unexceptionable in tone and unanswerable in logic. Said the Secretary to Mr. Adams: "You will desist from all intercourse, unofficial as well as official, with the British government, as long as it shall continue intercourse of either kind with the domestic enemies of this country." Again, "If Great Britain shall choose to recognize them (the rebel privateers) as lawful belligerents, and give them shelter from our pursuit and punishment, the laws of nations afford an adequate and proper remedy. And while you need not say this in advance, be sure that you say nothing inconsistent with it." The latter sentence was added by Mr. Lincoln himself, and shows how far sighted he was, for ten years afterward England paid us fifteen millions as the penalty for this and other infractions of international law.

England gave up her unofficial connection with the rebel commissioners, but soon afterward we discovered her negotiating a treaty, or rather securing the ratification of a treaty, by secret emissaries in the south, and the President promptly revoked the exequater of the consul conducting it. Then came the arrest of Slidell and Mason on the British Mail Steamer Trent, an affair which seemed to make war unavoidable. If the private dispatches sent to Lord Lyons by England had been made public, war would have come, for they were insulting in tone and so peremptory, that compliance with the demand would have been out of the question. According to the ground we had always taken, the seizure of Mason and Slidell on a neutral vessel was illegal. On the other hand, judged from the standpoint of the claims always persisted in by Great Britain, such seizure was perfectly proper. We can, therefore, most heartily endorse Mr. Blaine's conclusions, that in view of the past and the long series of graver outrages with which Great Britain had so wantonly insulted the American flag, she might have refrained from invoking the judg

ment of the civilized world against us and especially might have refrained from making, in the hour of our sore trial and deep distress, a demand which no British Minister would address to this government in the day of its strength and power. [Applause.] The Trent affair settled, the President was almost immediately confronted with the claim of England, that ships designed for rebel privateers could be built in England without question, equipped at a convenient station and that they would be allowed to enter neutral ports to coal, provision, and prepare for other piratical cruises. Protests were uttered, and in 1863, Mr. Seward boldly declared that "if this condition of things is to remain and receive the deliberate sanction of the British government, the navy of the United States will receive instructions to pursue these enemies into the ports which thus in violation of the law of nations and the obligations of neutrality, become harbors for the pirates."

It is practically certain that an open rupture would have occurred, but just then Vicksburg fell. Gettysburg was added to the list of Union victories. Chattanooga followed, and every time the Union cannon thundered forth a victory, another obstruction was placed in the way of rebel ship-building on the Mersey.

There was no excuse for the precipitate and ofttimes unjust action of Great Britain toward us, but there was still less excuse for the effusions of Lord John Russell, which coming to light after all these years excite indignation and resentment. Among other things, Mr. Russell volunteered the following at the very outbreak of the war. The letter was addressed to the British Minister in Washington. "Supposing that Mr. Lincoln, acting under bad advice, should endeavor to provide excitement for the public mind by raising questions with Great Britain, Her Majesty's government feels no hesitation as to the policy they would pursue. They would, in the first place, be very forbearing. But they would take care to let the government which multiplied provocations and sought for quarrels understand that their forbearance sprang from a consciousness of strength and not from timidity or weakness. They would warn a government which was making political capital out of blustering demonstrations, that our patience might be tried too far."

I think that is the most remarkable official utterance in the history of modern diplomacy. There was no call for it, nothing to suggest it; still, as a private note, it might have been allowable,