12. How were the soldiers' families suffering?
13. What is said of the terrible struggle of the women and children?
14. Can you mention the case of Edward Cooper?
15. What was the verdict of the court-martial? What was the ending of this sad case?
CHAPTER LXI.
NORTH CAROLINA AND PEACE-MAKING.
A. D. 1864 TO 1865.
In 1864 Colonel Vance was re-elected Governor of North Carolina. At his first election he was personally very popular, was a soldier in the field, had been in actual battle, had been by no means a strong "Union" man in the earlier portions of the year 1861, and, indeed, in May of that year, was in camp at the head of his company. Mr. Johnston, his opponent, was a secessionist, but neither popular nor a soldier, and comparatively but little known to the mass of the people, except in his own immediate section of the State. Everybody of every shade of opinion had the fullest confidence that Colonel Vance would do his whole duty. There was no expectation that Mr. Johnston would be elected, nor any serious effort made in his behalf.
2. In his course as Governor such strenuous support was given to the Confederate States that when his term of service approached conclusion, and a new election was to be held, a few men who had been among his most zealous friends two years before, but who now opposed the determined attitude of the Confederacy and of North Carolina, were found opposing his continuance as Governor.
3. These comprised a small fragment of the people, and William W. Holden, of Wake, was their candidate, and this was all the opposition Governor Vance had. Mr. Holden was the editor of the Standard, a newspaper that had, in years past, been extreme in Southern proclivities, and he had advocated and signed the Ordinance of Secession, but of late he had advocated North Carolina's withdrawal from the Confederacy and the making of separate terms with the powers at Washington.