Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

[230] the suspension of exchange fell heavily upon the Union captives, who suffered terribly in Confederate prisons. The story of their wrongs in that respect forms one of the darkest chapters in the history of crime.

In regard to the fiat of emancipation, the President stood firm. He did not recede a line from the original stand-point of his proclamation. It was the exponent of the future policy of the Government. Congress passed laws in consequence of it, and authorized the enlistment into the military service of the Republic of one hundred and fifty thousand negroes. The slave-holding Oligarchy raved. The voices of their organs, especially of those at Richmond, sounded like wails from Bedlam. The Peace Faction protested. They denounced every thing calculated to crush the rebellion to be “unconstitutional.” ¹ Yet the President and Congress went steadily forward in the path of duty prescribed by the necessities of the hour.² The successes of the National arms at Gettysburg and on the Mississippi gave the most strengthening encouragement. In the campaigns in the West, fifty thousand square miles of the National domain had been recovered from the Confederates before the middle of August, when the President said: “The signs look better. The Father of Waters again goes unvexed to the sea, thanks to the great Northwest for it. Nor yet wholly to them. Three hundred miles ,up, they met New England, Empire, Keystone, and Jersey, hewing their way right and left. The sunny South, too, in more colors than one, also lent a hand. On the spot their part of the history is jotted down in black and white. The job was a great National one, and let none be banned who bore an honorable part in it. And while those who have cleared the great river may well be proud, even that is not all. It is hard to say that any thing has been more bravely and better done than at Antietam, Murfreesboroa, Gettysburg, and on many fields of lesser note. Nor must Uncle Sam's web-feet be forgotten. At all the waters' margins they have been present, not only on the deep sea, the broad bay, and the rapid river, but also up the narrow, muddy bayou, and wherever the ground was a little damp, they have been and made their tracks. Thanks to all! For the great Republic — for the principles by which it lives and keeps alive — for man's vast future, thanks to all! Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among freemen, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet, and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the cost. And then there ”