Part 8 (1/2)

Lee advanced by the Shenandoah Valley into the Northern States. But at Gettysburg he met the reorganized Union army, under Meade. The collision of one hundred and sixty thousand men, lasting for three days, resulted in that hard-won Union victory which proved the turning-point of the war. On the day of Lee's retreat from Gettysburg, the Fourth of July, Vicksburg was surrendered to Grant. Soon after, Port Hudson fell, and the Mississippi was opened to the pa.s.sage of troops. Then the Battle of Chattanooga was fought and won, and Tennessee was rid of Confederate occupation. Meanwhile, the siege of Charleston was proceeding on the coast, and before the end of the year Fort Wagner was taken.

[Sidenote: Grant Commander-in-chief.]

[Sidenote: Sherman's March to the Sea.]

We have now reached the fourth year of the war, 1864. It was now clear that the result was only a question of time. The first events of the year were not brilliant. Kilpatrick made his famous but futile raid near Richmond; Hanks met with disaster at Red River; Forrest captured Fort Pillow and killed three hundred negro troops. The last act of the momentous drama began by the elevation of General Ulysses S. Grant to the command-in-chief in March. The two great movements which were together to seal the fate of the Confederacy were at once prepared.

Grant, a.s.suming command of the Army of the Potomac, made Richmond his objective point. He advanced deliberately towards the southern capital, and fought the terrific battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor. He laid siege to Petersburg, but without immediate result.

Meanwhile the gallant Sherman began his marvellous march to the sea, took Atlanta, and at last entered Savannah in triumph. Sheridan, making his famous ride, defeated Early at Cedar Creek. The _Alabama_ was sunk by the _Kearsarge_ off the French coast. Mobile was captured by Farragut. The _Albermarle_ was destroyed.

[Sidenote: Surrender of Lee.]

The Confederates were now penned in, and it only remained to make a last strenuous effort to end the war. While Sherman advanced northward, taking Charleston by the way, and Terry captured Fort Fisher, the siege of Richmond became closer and more vigorous. Then Sheridan conquered at Five Forks, turning the flank of the hunted and hounded Lee. Finally, on the 3d of April, 1865, the Union troops occupied Richmond and Petersburg; Lee surrendered on the 9th, at Appomattox; Johnston followed by yielding to Sherman; and the Southern Confederacy was no more.

XIV. THE PRESIDENTS.

[Sidenote: Number of Presidents.]

Between 1789, when the government organized by the const.i.tution began its functions, and 1886, the people of the United States have twenty-five times chosen a President; and of the Presidents, seven have been chosen for a second term. Four of them, having died in office, were succeeded by Vice Presidents. While the number of terms, therefore, has been twenty-five, the executive chair has been filled by twenty-two individuals. In referring to the line of Presidents, and scanning the names of those who have exercised powers more extensive than those of English royalty, we are struck by the fact that very few of our Presidents have ranked first, in point of intellect, in their own generation. It may be said, indeed, that Jefferson alone of them all was without dispute the foremost statesman of his day.

[Sidenote: Presidential Ability.]

Comparing our elected chief magistrates with the various lines of hereditary sovereigns of Europe, we find that pre-eminent ability is scarcely more frequent among them than is presented by the houses of Romanoff, Hohenzollern, and Hapsburg. When, however, we consider their moral qualities as rulers--their patriotism and purity, their freedom from a too grasping ambition, the fidelity and zeal with which they have served the country as best they knew how--we are perhaps not unreasonable in judging them superior, as a line of rulers, to any royal house of which history affords record. Very rarely has it been that a President has been even suspected of craving increased power for himself, or of using his office for unworthy personal ends. Some have been weak, some perverse and obstinate; but as the clouds of party pa.s.sion, which have sometimes obscured the motives and the acts of our chief magistrates, pa.s.s away, we may recognize in their action honest though now and then ill directed efforts to use their high office for the general weal.

[Sidenote: The Ablest Men not Presidents.]

Our intellectually ablest men have not, with the exception of Jefferson, attained the Presidency, though many of them have aspired to it. No one can doubt that Hamilton was a greater political genius than the first two Presidents. It can scarcely be questioned that Webster, Calhoun, and Clay were greater in this respect than the three Presidents who succeeded Jefferson. Madison was a man of culture, clear vision, and political learning, but he was the disciple of Jefferson, and did not reveal qualities of originality and constructiveness in statesmans.h.i.+p.

Monroe was a man of yet more limited capacity, unless Polk be excepted, Monroe was the least able of all our Presidents. But he had a large experience in public affairs, he was judicious and cool-tempered, and thoroughly honest and simple-minded. He was personally liked, and after Was.h.i.+ngton was the only President who was the unanimous choice of the country.[1]

[Sidenote: Monroe.]

[Sidenote: John Quincy Adams.]

John Quincy Adams, a trained statesman, who had been an amba.s.sador, a Senator, and a Secretary of State, was still inferior in point of political intellect to Clay, his own Secretary of State, and to Calhoun, the Vice-President; and there were several others at that time who might justly be competed with him. So, although Andrew Jackson was perhaps the greatest of our Presidents in executive vigor and stern force of will, as a political figure his most devoted admirers would scarcely rank him with Clay or Webster. Van Buren was rather a shrewd politician than an eminent statesman; but he was a politician in a higher sense, and no stain of dishonor attaches to his career, while his presidential term was an honest and able one.

[Sidenote: Later Presidents.]

Many public men might be named who, living at the time of Harrison's elevation, were very much his political superiors; in his very cabinet were at least three, Webster, Crittenden, and Ewing; and John Tyler was very far from being in the front rank of American statesmen, though his political capacity has sometimes been underrated.

Polk was the weakest of all our later Presidents, and he too presided over at least three secretaries who were intellectually larger men, in Marcy, Robert J. Walker, and Buchanan. The same may be said in comparing General Taylor with his advisers, and Fillmore, Pierce, and Lincoln with theirs; for while no one can fail to revere the grand moral and practical qualities which make Lincoln ill.u.s.trious, in purely intellectual eminence he was excelled by Seward, Chase, and perhaps Stanton.

[Sidenote: A Conservative Republic.]

[Sidenote: Origin of the Presidents.]

Ours has always been a conservative Republic. The French Republicans of '93 and '48, the Communards of '71, did not derive their wild and visionary fanaticism from our example, although there can be no doubt that our Revolution had not a little influence in hastening that of France. When the people have been called upon to choose a chief magistrate, therefore, they have not sought men of extreme views, nor have humble birth and limited education often been recommendations of candidates. It is notable that the first six Presidents were selected from the cla.s.s which in England is called the ”gentry.” Was.h.i.+ngton, indeed, belonged to the high rural aristocracy of Virginia; Mount Vernon was as much a patrician manor-house as are the ”halls,” ”priories,” and ”manors” of rural England; and he lived there in the style of a country magnate, John Adams belonged to the st.u.r.dy New England yeomanry sprung from the Pilgrims, and, as the descendant of John Alden, had some reason to pride himself upon good blood. The three succeeding Virginia Presidents were sons of gentlemen-farmers, and belonged to the cultivated gentry of the Old Dominion. Jackson was the first of the plebeian Presidents, and then came Van Buren, of the gentry by birth; Harrison, the son of a signer of the Declaration, and thus well born, and Tyler, another Virginia gentleman, the lord of Sherwood Forest. Polk belonged to the same rural condition. Fillmore was the next President of humble beginnings, and Lincoln the third; while Andrew Johnson, who learned to read after he was married, and began life as a country tailor, was the most lowly born of all our chief magistrates.