All hope seemed gone from the North.

Up till now the North had lost more than the South. It had suffered most of all from a lack of really able commanders. Now, however, Lincoln discovered a really great general in Ulysses S. Grant, and from this time on the fortune of the war began to change.

The North was richer: it had more men, money, and resources to draw on; in a long struggle the South was bound to be worn out. Grant saw this and planned accordingly. Grant had distinguished himself early in the war by the capture of Fort Henry and Fort Donelson, on the Mississippi, in February 1862; in the following April he had driven the Confederates back to Corinth after one of the most expensive battles of the war. Grant was a man of the most reckless personal courage; as a general his great fault was that he exposed his men needlessly. Complaints were early made of him to Lincoln; but Lincoln’s wonderful eye discerned a great soldier in Grant. “I can’t spare that man; he fights.” Later he was told that Grant drank. “Pray tell me what brand of whisky he takes, that I may send a barrel to each of my other generals.”

Lincoln and Grant always understood each other. Each was a man of intense strength of character, given to doing things rather than talking of them. Grant had not Lincoln’s tenderness of heart, or the beauty of his pure and generous nature; but he had his power of concentrating his whole mind upon the task in hand. He knew Lincoln’s secret: “Work, work, is the main thing.”

The battle of Chancellorsville, May 1863, was for the North the darkest moment of the war; things were never so dark again. Only Lincoln’s supreme faith and courage could have risen from such a series of defeats unshaken. The newspapers were full of abuse of the President; plots were on foot against him to prevent his re-election when the time came. In February he had lost his son Willie after a long and painful illness. But he never quailed.

And his patience was at last to be rewarded. After Chancellorsville his unflinching belief in the justice of his course, in spite of opposition and discontent, was to be rewarded: he was to look, if only for a moment, upon an America not only free but united.

CHAPTER VIII
VICTORY

After Chancellorsville the South thought that all was won, and a movement was set on foot to attack Washington. Lee marched north with an army that, though only half fed, was full of enthusiasm, and on July 1 took up his position at Gettysburg, where he was faced by the Federal army under General Meade. The battle lasted three days, and the slaughter was terrific; in spite of the desperate determination of the Confederates, the day ended in a victory for the Union.

Lee was driven back, and forced to retreat into Virginia. The invasion was at an end. The victory, though brilliant, was not followed up, perhaps because of the heavy losses of the Union army; but it was the turning-point of the war. Washington was never again in such danger; the Confederates had lost the one great opportunity of attack since Bull Run.

Deep national thankfulness was felt at this, the first great victory for the North. The battlefield was only a few miles from the capital, and many of the citizens and the most prominent men of the town assembled to perform a service for the dead who had fallen there. Lincoln was called upon to speak. He had not prepared anything, but the short speech which he gave made a deep impression upon all who heard it, and puts into very noble words the thoughts that were always present to his mind.