I. The Idea Formulated. More and more Lincoln becomes the voice of the Period. He is nominated a second time for the Presidency and is elected triumphantly by the People. His thought is now specially to bring the Slave-States back into the Union, emancipated and reconstructed. He urges unseceded Slave-States to make movements toward the abolition of slavery. Then he seeks in every way to cause the adoption of the Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery-the Thirteenth Amendment.

In this part of his work we see him trying to evoke the State-making instinct of the Southern People who are to build anew the local governments in the seceded States occupied by the Federal army. Particularly in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee he endeavors to bring the citizens to undo the work of Secession. He is careful not to dictate, he distinctly declines to re-make the State governments by an autocratic exercise of power. To be sure one condition is put upon them: the abolition of slavery. Thus even the Slave-State is transformed, is brought first to make itself free, and thus becomes Free-State producing. This is the essence of Lincoln's Reconstruction: these Slave-States, hitherto in rebellion, must show themselves in their own. case productive of the Free-State; then they can come back and live harmoniously in the new Union which is Free-State producing only. It

into a different field of rebellion, into the old Slave-States which seceded, but which have not yet felt the presence of actual war at their doors. This must be the last act of the great drama. That circular movement, which, starting from the North-West, has swept victoriously down the Mississippi and then eastward to Chattanooga, is about to enter upon its last curve, which irregularly cuts through Georgia, South Carolina into North Carolina, when the war closes.

Following in the track of the West-Northern army is a new stage of the political development of the War: Reconstruction. If the second Period gave us an emancipated Union, the present third Period is to start into existence a reconstructed Union. This also is the work of Lincoln. Emancipation having become a fact, the slower and more difficult task of restoring these seceded States to the new Union is to follow. Thus the political process involved in the War will have completed itself. We recollect that the first stage was the preservation of the Union, the second was its emancipation, the third is now to be its regeneration and restoration, usually called its reconstruction. This last work, however, Lincoln will not live to finish, though he makes a good beginning.

We shall now for the third and last time outline that process which we have found determining the entire conflict.

I. The Idea Formulated. More and more. Lincoln becomes the voice of the Period. He is nominated a second time for the Presidency and is elected triumphantly by the People. His thought is now specially to bring the Slave-States back into the Union, emancipated and reconstructed. He urges unseceded Slave-States to make movements toward the abolition of slavery. Then he seeks in every way to cause the adoption of the Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery-the Thirteenth Amendment.

In this part of his work we see him trying to evoke the State-making instinct of the Southern People who are to build anew the local governments in the seceded States occupied by the Federal army. Particularly in Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee he endeavors to bring the citizens to undo the work of Secession. He is careful not to dictate, he distinctly declines to re-make the State governments by an autocratic exercise of power. To be sure one condition is put upon them: the abolition of slavery. Thus even the Slave-State is transformed, is brought first to make itself free, and thus becomes Free-State producing. This is the essence of Lincoln's Reconstruction: these Slave-States, hitherto in rebellion, must show themselves in their own case productive of the Free-State; then they can come back and live harmoniously in the new Union which is Free-State producing only. It

he sends Sheridan, whom he had called from the West to the command of the cavalry in the Army of the Potomac, to take charge of the Shenandoah Valley. This officer, after defeating Early in several pitched battles, will smash to smithereens the strategic machine, doing as the last act what ought to have been done first. He will even use the valley as a means of approach toward Richmond, after having been employed so long just the other way.

For the present, then, we shall again have to turn away from the two opposing armies of the East, Northern and Southern, with that invisible line of separation drawn between them as impassible as ever.

(c). In the spring of 1864 the West-Northern army is starting on a campaign against the old Slave-States which have seceded. It enters the upper part of Georgia, and moves victoriously along a line of battles to Atlanta, which it captures (Sept. 2nd). Soon it divides; one part of it under Thomas remains behind to look after the Confederates under Hood; the other part under Sherman starts November 12th for Savannah, and reaches this city December 10th. Thomas wins the battle of Nashville (December 15-16), routing Hood's army and pursuing its fragments into the far South. This has been declared the best-fought battle of the War, and the fame of Thomas has steadily increased since it took place.

of the Southern leaders for his work, and have spared the Nation the painful period of Congressional Reconstruction after the war. Still his Idea despite some years of obstruction wrought itself out to completeness, and made the SlaveState not only a Free-State but also Free-State producing, as a member of the Union.

II. The Idea armed. This still shows the same general process as before, having the same three implements, which we have named the preventive, the defensive, and the offensive.

(a). The task of prevention has already been described as allotted to the navy, and its work lies on the watery element. During this Period however, it takes the offensive also and captures the defences of Mobile as its chief prize. blockade was always getting more effective.

The

The gun-boats of the western rivers were closely connected with the military department, co-operating chiefly with the armies in the field. Thus they rendered the greatest service in opening the Mississippi and its affluents and keeping them open. Also they took an important part in the battles fought on the banks of navigable streams, as at Donelson, Shiloh, and many other places.

(b). Now we are to witness a new phase in the career of the East-Northern army. General Grant, the successful commander in the West, is to try his hand on that uncanny piece of Vir