of summer will complete their discomfiture, and compel their baffled and defeated forces to the abandonment of expeditions on which was based their chief hope of success in effecting our subjugation.

"We must not forget, however, that the war is not yet ended, and that we are still confronted by powerful armies and threatened by numerous fleets, and that the Government that controls those fleets and armies is driven to the most desperate effort to effect the unholy purpose in which it has thus far been defeated.

"The very unfavourable season, the protracted droughts of last year, reduce the harvests on which we depend far below an average yield, and the deficiency was, unfortunately, still more marked in the northern part of our Confederacy, where supplies were specially needed for the army. If, through a confidence in an early peace, which may prove delusive, our fields should now be devoted to the production of cotton and tobacco, instead of grain and live stock, and other articles necessary for the subsistence of the people and army, the consequences may prove serious if not disastrous, especially should this present season prove as unfavourable as the last. Your country therefore appeals to you to lay aside all thought of gain, and to devote yourselves to securing your liberties, without which these gains would be valueless. It is true that the wheat harvest in the more southern States, which will be gathered next month, promises an abundant yield; but, even if this promise be fulfilled, the difficulty of transportation, enhanced as it has been by an unusually rainy winter, will cause embarrassments in military operations and sufferings among the people, should the crops in the middle and northern portions of the Confederacy prove deficient. But no uneasiness may be felt in regard to a mere supply of bread for men. It is for the large amount of corn and forage required in the raising of live stock, and the supplies of the animals used in military operations, too bulky for distant transportation; and in them the deficiency of the last harvest was mostly felt. Let your fields be devoted exclusively to the production of corn, oats, beans, peas, and potatoes, and other food for man and beast; let corn be sown broadcast for fodder in immediate proximity to railroads, rivers, and canals, and let all your efforts be directed to the prompt supply of these articles in the districts where our armies are operating. You will thus add greatly to their efficiency, and furnish the means without which it is impracticable to make those prompt and active movements which have hitherto stricken terror into our enemies and secured our most brilliant triumphs.

A proclamation was issued by President Lincoln on the 8th of May, by which he declared that:

"No plea of alienage will be received or allowed to exempt from the obligations imposed by the aforesaid Act of Congress any person of foreign birth who shall have declared on oath his intention to become a citizen of the United States under the laws thereof,

and who shall be found within the United States at any time during the continuance of the present insurrection and rebellion, at or after the expiration of sixty-five days from the date of this proclamation; nor shall any such plea of alienage be allowed in favour of any such person who has so, as aforesaid, declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the United States, and shall have exercised at any time the right of suffrage, or any other political franchise within the United States, under the laws thereof, or under the laws of any of the several States."

General Grant had the command of a large army in East Tennessee, where, at Chattanooga, the Federal General Thomas was closely hemmed in by the Confederates. Immense exertions were made by the North to send him assistance. He and his troops were besieged in the midst of a hostile country, and there was great danger that they would be starved into surrender. Roads were formed, and long trains of camels wended their way with heavy loads along well-nigh impassable tracks, while reinforcements were hurried on, dragging artillery through fords and mud.

The position of the Confederate forces assembled in Virginia and North Carolina at the beginning of April, will be best indicated by the following extract from the General Orders :

:

"The geographical limits of the command of LieutenantGeneral Longstreet, embracing the defences of Richmond, and extending south to include the State of North Carolina, the whole under the supervision and general direction of General R. E. Lee, will be divided into three military departments, as follow:-All north of the James river, for the defence of Richmond, will constitute the Department of Richmond, under Major-General Elzey, headquarters Richmond; all that portion of Virginia south of the James river, and east of the county of Powhatan, will constitute the Department of Southern Virginia, under Major-General French, head-quarters at some central point near the Black Water. The State of North Carolina will constitute the Department of North Carolina, under Major-General D. H. Hill, head-quarters Goldsborough."

A great battle, or rather series of battles, was fought at Chancellorsville, to the north of Richmond, in the beginning of May. Leaving a corps d'armée threatening the heights of Fredericksburg, where the main body of the Confederate army was supposed to be stationed, General Hooker, at the end of April, threw 80,000 or 90,000 men across the Rappahannock, and turned the left flank of the Confederates. In order to enable the reader to understand the locality of the scene of conflict, we avail ourselves of a spirited description written by an eye-witness, who, after mentioning that Chancellorsville owes its name to a large brick house where a certain Mr. Chancellor once lived, and kept an hotel, goes on to say":"Chancellorsville is connected with Fredericksburg by two

2 See the "Times," June 16, 1863.

highway-roads, which unite in front of the house, where, deflecting from the westerly course they have hitherto pursued, they proceed together in a south-westerly direction towards Orange Court House. These roads are distinguished by the names of the turnpike and plank roads. In former times Fredericksburg was connected with Chancellorsville solely by the turnpike, which during most of its course runs nearer to the river than the plank, the latter having been laid down because, being further from the river, it avoided the hilly bluffs which adjoin the stream. Almost parallel with these two roads runs the river Rappahannock, until, twelve miles west of Fredericksburg, it bifurcates, the north branch of the Rappahannock running northwards and westwards, while the Rapidan river flows in from the south-west. Two miles below the junction of the streams the Rappahannock is crossed by the United States Ford. Eight miles above Fredericksburg is another ford called Freeman's Landing; four miles above Fredericksburg another called Banks's Ford; while at and below Fredericksburg itself, in place of the two bridges which once spanned the stream, pontoon bridges have been in many places thrown across by the Federals. Proceeding westward, and following the two streams above the fork, the north branch of the Rappahannock is traversed by one or two fords, of which Kelly's is the principal, while the Rapidan is crossed by Ely's and Germanna Fords. The whole of the country commencing four miles west of Fredericksburg and for ten miles southward and westward of Chancellorsville is clothed with woods, dense as the primeval forests of Germany, in which Varus' legions were destroyed, consisting partly of pine, partly of scrub oak, called here black jack, intertwined with a thick undergrowth of chicopin, and apparently impenetrable save to rabbits and foxes. To the wild, dreary region extending southwards and westwards of Chancellorsville, towards Orange Court House, has been given the appropriate name of the Wilderness."

The main body of the Federal army crossed the Rappahannock at Kelly's and other fords on the morning of the 29th of April. From Kelly's Ford the right and centre then crossed the Rapidan and occupied ground to the south of Fredericksburg, the defences of which were thus turned and Richmond itself was threatened. Next day nearly the whole of the great Federal army was in line, and advanced towards Fredericksburg, sweeping before it a Confederate division which was stationed near the United States Ford. General Lee threw up earthworks half-way between Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, and thus arrested the march of the enemy. General Hooker then retired slowly upon Chancellorsville, followed by General Lee, and in the evening the Confederate General Stuart attacked part of the Federals with his cavalry, and they fell back. On the 1st of May Lee continued to advance and Hooker to retire.

"But," to use the words of the writer already quoted, "as they neared Chancellorsville, the former penetrated the latter's

purpose in retreating, when he discovered that about 500 yards in front of Chancellorsville, in the midst of a dense thicket of black jack, the Federal pioneers had thrown up very strong intrenchments at right angles to the turnpike and plank roads with an abattis of felled trees bristling outwards in front, and seemingly defying the passage of any living and walking animal. Running southwards for about a mile from the plank road, the Yankee works turned short to the west until they again met the plank road between Chancellorsville and Orange Court House, towards the latter of which points another plank road deflects in a south-westerly direction after leaving Chancellorsville. Within these works the Yankees stood thickly and savagely at bay, their powerful artillery massed on some high ground a little in the rear. Their position was fearfully formidable-repulse, if the works were attacked solely from the front, seemed inevitable-the loss of life to the assailants anyhow must have been ghastly. Under these circumstances General Lee resolved to outflank the flanker."

On the next day, General "Stonewall" Jackson executed a daring movement. At the first break of dawn he set out with three divisions, and making a long détour, got round to the enemy's right, where he suddenly attacked them in the evening on their flank and rear, while General Lee opened a heavy artillery fire upon their front. The Federals were thrown into confusion, and seem to have been only saved by the approaching darkness from utter discomfiture. But the success of the Confederates was dearly purchased by the death of their favourite leader, General Jackson, who fell by a chance bullet from one of his own men. We will give the account of his fatal wound as it is told by the same writer :—

"Formation or order the Federals had none; reserves, tactics, organization, disposition, plan, all went down before the whirlwind suddenness of the surprise. The loss of the Confederates was ludicrously small; their advance like that of a white squall in the bay of Naples. Night had fallen. About eight o'clock General Jackson rode forward with two or three of his Staff along the plank road, and advanced 150 yards in front of his foremost skirmishers, peering with those keen eyes which you might fancy could be seen through the densest gloom, forward into the night. He turned to ride back-a heavy fire from one of his own regiments, hailing from South Carolina, but whose number I will in mercy withhold, saluted him. One bullet struck his left arm four inches below the shoulder, shattering the bone down to the elbow. The wound was intensely painful; he half fell, half was lifted from his horse. An aide galloped back to A. P. Hill to report that Stonewall Jackson was wounded and lying in the road. General Hill galloped hastily up, flung himself from the saddle, began, choked with emotion, to cut the cloth of Jackson's sleeve, when suddenly four of the Federal videttes appeared on horseback, and were fired on by the Staff officers. The videttes fell back upon a strong and

swiftly advancing line of Federal skirmishers. General Hill and all the officers and couriers of both Staffs had no alternative but to mount and ride for their lives, leaving Jackson where he lay."

He was, however, not recognized by the Federals, who swept past him, and were in turn driven back. But in the mean time two more bullets had struck the fallen hero, and both again from his own men. He was carried to the rear, and his arm was amputated; but his strength failed him, and he soon afterwards diedthe most chivalrous soldier and the ablest officer that the American civil war has hitherto produced.

Next day, Sunday, May 3rd, the battle was renewed, and raged furiously along the whole line. Marye's heights were taken by the Federals, but recaptured the next day, and this was their only even temporary success, for the strong defences formed by them, consisting of trunks of trees and logs with interwoven branches, so as to be almost impenetrable, were stormed by the Confederates, and the enemy behind their shelter was completely broken.

"With astonishing accuracy Stuart's enfilading fire had torn through their ranks. In every variety of attitude of death, torn, rent, and shivered into scarcely distinguishable relics of humanity, lay what so lately had breathed and moved. Still more terrible and strangely appalling was the road from Chancellorsville towards Orange Court House, along which, and on either side of which, Jackson had descended to the harvest of death. Tumbrils over

thrown, caissons exploded, horses dead and dying, sometimes with broken legs, sometimes with ghastly wounds, human bodies in every guise of suffering and death, riven trees, and, most fearful of all, a crackling fire, running swiftly through the grass and black jack brushwood, and suggesting dreadful thoughts of wounded and helpless men perishing by the most agonizing death known to humanity, froze the blood with horror, as the spectator in agony turned his eyes to Heaven, to gain a moment's relief from the unutterable and woful anguish of earth."

We need not continue the details of the battle, which had, in fact, now become a rout. The shattered columns of the Federals next morning made for Banks's Ford, pursued by the Confederates, and at nightfall, under cover of a dense fog, they crossed by a pontoon bridge, and, under a heavy fire from their victorious foes, reached the northern bank of the Rappahannock, a beaten and demoralized army, having lost in killed, wounded, and missing, 28,000 men.

When General Lee heard of Jackson's wound, he wrote to him, and said:

"If I could have directed events, I should have chosen, for the good of the country, to have been disabled in your stead. I congratulate you upon the victory, which is due to your skill and energy."

He also issued the following General Order upon the 11th of May: