"The achievements of this hour will give a new meaning to this memorable day; and Vicksburg will heighten the glory in the patriot's heart, which kindles at the mention of Bunker Hill and Yorktown. The dawn of a conquered peace is breaking before you. The plaudits of an admiring world will hail you wherever you go."
Take it altogether it was perhaps the most brilliant operation of the war, and established the reputation of Grant as one of the greatest military leaders of any age. He, the last of the triumvirate, is passing away; and, in this connection, no apology is needed in quoting the letter which the President wrote with his own hand, and transmitted to him, on receipt of the glorious tidings:—
My dear General,—I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity of Vicksburg I thought you should do what you finally did,—march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and then go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope, that you knew better than I that the Yazoo-Pass expedition and the like could succeed. When you got below, and took Fort Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned northward, east of the Big Black, I thought it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.
And recall now the never-to-be-forgotten scenes at Gettysburg. The Union army had been defeated at Chancellorsville, and Gen. Lee, having assumed the offensive, had been making the greatest preparations for striking a decisive blow. Already had he passed through Maryland; he was now in Pennsylvania. But valiant men were there to meet and oppose. The fate of the day, the fate of the Confederacy, was staked upon the issue. I cannot picture the battle; but we all know the result, and how great was the rejoicing in the North when, on that 4th day of July, the tidings of the fall of Vicksburg and the victory at Gettysburg reached the country.
A portion of the battle-field of Gettysburg was set apart as a resting-place for the heroes who fell on that bloody ground. In November of that year the ceremony of consecration took place. Edward Everett, the orator and the scholar, delivered the oration; it was a polished specimen of his consummate skill. After him rose President Lincoln,—"simple, rude, his care-worn face now lighted and glowing with intense feeling." He simply read the touching speech which is already placed among the classics of our language:—
"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 battle-field 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 power to add or detract. 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 nobly 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 increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation shall, under God, have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth."
There have been but four instances in history in which great deeds have been celebrated in words as immortal as themselves: the epitaph upon the dead Spartan band at Thermopylæ; the words of Demosthenes on those who perished at Marathon; the speech of Webster in memory of those who laid down their lives at Bunker Hill; and these words of Lincoln on the hill at Gettysburg. As he closed, and while his listeners were still sobbing, he grasped the hand of Mr. Everett, and said. "I congratulate you on your success."—"Ah," replied the orator, gracefully, "Mr. President, how gladly would I exchange all my hundred pages to have been the author of your twenty lines!"
I forbear to dwell longer on the events of the war. The tide had turned, and the end was already foreseen. Notwithstanding that Mr. Lincoln had proved the righteousness of his course, a great many people in the North—and many even in his own party—were opposed to his nomination for a second term. The disaffected nominated Gen. Fremont, upon the platform of the suppression of the Rebellion, the Monroe doctrine, and the election of President and Vice-President by the direct vote of the people, and for one term only. The Democratic party declared the war for the Union a failure, and very properly nominated McClellan. It required a long time for the General to make up his mind in regard to accepting the nomination; and, in conversations upon the subject with a friend, Lincoln suggested that perhaps he might be entrenching. The election was held, and Lincoln received a majority greater than was ever before given to a candidate for the presidency. The people this time were like the Dutch farmer,—they believed that "it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream."