Jacob D. Cox had achieved his reputation in the field at thirty-four. Sickles was forty-one when, desperately wounded, he was borne from the head of his corps at Gettysburg. Cadwallader Washburn in his forty-third year was in command of an important district in the South-West. Rawlins was high in General Grant's confidence and favor at thirty when he filled the important post of chief of staff. James B. Steedman was forty-four when he received Mr. Lincoln's special encomium for bravery. Franz Sigel was in command of a corps before he was thirty-five. Crawford was thirty-three when his division did its noble work at Gettysburg. Chamberlain was thirtyfour when he associated his name indelibly with the defense of Little Round-Top. Corse was but twenty-nine when he held the pass at Altoona. Beaver was still younger when he received his terrible wound and his promotion. Grenville Dodge had risen to the rank of a major-general and approved his merit in the Atlanta campaign before he was thirty-three. Hawley did splendid service in the field at thirty-five, and rose rapidly to the rank of brigadier-general. Gresham had made his brave record at thirty-two, and bears wounds to attest his service. The McCooks were all young, all gallant, all successful. Negley was a major-general before he was forty. John Beatty was a brigadier-general at thirty-two. Robert Potter commanded a corps before he was thirty-seven. Joseph B. Carr achieved an honorable reputation in his early thirties. Hartranft was highly distinguished before he was thirty-seven. Nelson A. Miles left his counting-room at twenty-one, enlisted as a private, and in two years was a brigadier-general. Selden Connor was rewarded with the same rank for his conduct at the battle of the Wilderness before he was twenty-seven. Nicholas L. Anderson was under thirty when he received his brevet of major-general for a military career worthy in all respects of his eminent kinsman who fired the first gun in defense. of the Union. The only general of volunteers beyond fifty years of age who acquired special distinction was James S. Wadsworth who in his fifty-seventh year fell in one of the most sanguinary battles of the war. The list, both of regulars and volunteers, who achieved high command while still young, might be largely increased. The names given are selected from a roll of honor that has never been surpassed for gallantry of spirit and intrepidity of action in the military service of any country, -a roll too long to have full justice done to all the names borne upon it. Indeed, one of the obstacles to wide spread popular fame for many, was in the great number of generals who fairly earned the laurels due to exalted heroism. In a military establishment so vast that the major-generals number one hundred and fifty, and the generals of brigade nearly or quite six hundred, with battles, engagements, and skirmishes in full proportion to the force which such a number of commanders implies, it is difficult to give even the names of all who are worthy of lasting renown. Battles such as established Scott's fame in the Niagara campaign, or Jackson's at New Orleans, or Taylor's at Buena Vista, were in magnitude repeated a hundred times during the civil conflict under commanders whose names are absolutely forgotten by the public. A single corps of Grant's army at the Wilderness, or of Sherman's at Atlanta, or of Meade's at Gettysburg, or of McClellan's on the Peninsula, or of Hooker's at Chancellorsville, contained a larger number of troops than Washington or Scott ever commanded on the field, a larger number than Taylor or Jackson ever saw mustered. A more correct conception of the real magnitude of the Union Army can be reached by measuring the proportions of the several branches of the service, than by simply stating the aggregate number of men. There were in all some seventeen hundred regiments of infantry, over two hundred and seventy regiments of cavalry, and more than nine hundred batteries of artillery. These numbers are without parallel in the military history of the world. There was a very strong and patriotic disposition to engage in the war, on the part of the sons of the Northern statesmen who had been prominent during the generation preceding the outbreak of hostilities. It was no doubt felt by the juniors to be a chivalric duty to defend on the field what had been advanced by the seniors in Congress and in Cabinet. A very notable instance was that of the brothers Ewing,-Hugh, Thomas, and Charles, sons of the eminent Thomas Ewing of Ohio, — each of whom attained through gradual promotion, fairly earned by meritorious service in the field, the rank of brigadier-general. They were all young, the eldest not being over thirty-five when he received his commission, the youngest under thirty. Senator Fessenden of Maine had two sons who rose to the rank of brigadier-general; a third with the rank of captain, was killed in the second battle of Bull Run. Vice-President Hamlin had one son who attained the rank of brigadier-general; another who served as colonel. William H. Seward, jun., also reached the rank of brigadier-general. William H. Harris, son of Mr. Seward's suc cessor in the Senate, honorably distinguished himself in the service. Benjamin Harrison of Indiana commanded a brigade before he was thirty, and made a military record which did honor to the illustrious name which he inherits. Fletcher Webster lost his life while bravely commanding a Massachusetts regiment in a war which his illustrious father's exposition of the Constitution had nerved the arm of the Government to maintain. Similar instances in the Union Army might be cited in great number. The same disposition was manifested on the Confederate side, and it may be said with truth that almost every name which grew into prominence in the long political contention between the North and the South was represented in the conflict of arms to which it led. That men without previous military education should prove to be intelligent, brave, efficient, and skillful officers, was a constant surprise to the foreign critics of our campaigns. The commanders of batteries, of regiments, of brigades, not to speak of battalions and companies, were almost wholly from the volunteer service. Many of the volunteers, as already indicated, rose to the command of divisions, a few to the command of corps, and in some marked instances to the command of separate armies and to the military direction of vast districts. At the same time the value of strict military training was shown by the superior prominence attained in propor tion to their numbers by the officers who had been educated at the West Point Military Academy. The wisdom of maintaining that institution was abundantly vindicated by the results of the war. Its graduates worked in harmony with the volunteers, and, as matter of fact, the field offices they held during the war were, with few exceptions, under the law for the organization of the volunteer forces. They imparted to the entire army the discipline, the organization, and the efficiency of a regular military establishment. There was naturally at the beginning of the war a certain jealousy between the regulars and the volunteers, but none that did not yield to the patriotism and good sense of both. The two services were rapidly and most happily combined, and demonstrated by their joint prowess the strength of the country for defense, and, if need be, for offense. Without maintaining a large military establishment, which besides its expense entails multiform evils, it was shown that the Republic possesses in the strong arms and patriotic hearts of its sons an unfailing source of military power. CHAPTER III. TIME FOR THE RECONSTRUCTION PROBLEM. THE PRESIDENT'S PUBLIC ADdresses. -- SIMILAR AC - REPRESENTATION IN CONGRESS DENIED TO THESE STATES. MR. SUMNER'S RESOLUTION. ADOPTED BY SENATE. - SIMILAR ACTION IN HOUSE. CONFLICT BETWEEN THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS. - CONGRESSIONAL PLAN OF RECONSTRUCTION. - THREE FUNDAMENTAL CONDITIONS. BILL PASSED JULY 4, 1864. — NOT APPROVED BY THE PRESI DENT. - HIS REASONS GIVEN IN A PUBLIC PROCLAMATION. -SENATOR WADE AND H. WINTER DAVIS CRITICISE THE PROCLAMATION. — THEIR Protest. — SUBSEQUENT RESOLUTION OF CONGRESS. THE PRESIDENT'S REPLY TO IT. MR. LINCOLN'S PROBABLE COURSE ON THE SUBJECT OF RECONSTRUCTION. RECONSTRUCTION OF THE GOVERNMENT OF TENNESSEE. THE QUICK PROCESS OF DOING. — ] - RATIFIED BY POPULAR VOTE, 25,293 TO 48.- PARSON BROWNLOW CHOSEN GOVERNOR. — PATTERSON AND FOWLER ELECTED SENATORS. JOHNSON'S INAUGURATION AS VICE-PRESIDENT. - HIS SPEECH. WERE THE REBEL STATES OUT OF THE UNION? JOHNSON'S · VIEWS. MR. LINCOLN'S VIEWS. RADICAL AND CONSERVATIVE. — EXTRA SESSION DEBATED. ADVERSE DECISION. ILL-LUCK OF EXTRA SESSIONS. R. JOHNSON continued his public receptions, his interviews, and his speeches for nearly a month after his accession to the Presidency - until indeed, in the judgment of his most anxious and most cautious friends, he had talked too much. All were agreed that the time had now come when he must do something. He had evidently sought to impress the country with the belief that his Administration was to be marked by a policy of extraordinary vigor, that the standard of loyalty was to be held high, that the leaders of the Rebellion were to be dealt with in a spirit of stern justice. His position gave satisfaction to those who thought the chief conspirators against the Union could not be punished too severely; but it led to uneasiness among the anti-slavery philanthropists, lest, in wreaking vengeance upon white traitors, the President might leave the loyal negroes unprotected in their newly acquired civil rights. On the 10th of May the President issued a proclamation declaring substantially that actual hostilities had ceased, and that "armed resistance to the authority of the Government in the insurrectionary States may be regarded at an end." This great fact being officially recognized, the President found himself face to face with the momentous duty of bringing the eleven States of the Confederacy into active and harmonious relations with the Government of the Union. He had reached the point where he must take the first step in the serious task of Reconstruction, and the country awaited it with profound interest. He had in other official stations given distinct intimations of the conditions which he considered essential to the restoration of a rebel State to its place in the Union, but in the numerous speeches he had delivered since his accession to the Presidency he had studiously avoided a repetition of his former position, and had with equal care refrained from a public committal to any specific line of action. The manner in which the insurrectionary States should be dealt. with at the close of hostilities had been the object of solicitous inquiry throughout the war. It was indeed often a question of angry disputation in Congress, in the press, and among the people. The tentative and somewhat speculative efforts in this field, which had been made or at least encouraged by Mr. Lincoln, had confused rather than solved the problem, and yet his action could not fail to exert an embarrassing and possibly a decisive influence upon the course of his successor. Difficult as it might have proved to Mr. Lincoln himself to go forward on the line he had marked out, it would obviously prove far more difficult to Mr. Johnson to maintain the same policy with the inevitable result of renewing the conflict with Congress which Mr. Lincoln had only allayed and postponed - not removed. A brief review of what Mr. Lincoln had done in the field. of Reconstruction will give a more accurate knowledge of President Johnson's policy, which afterwards became the subject of prolonged and bitter controversy. Mr. Lincoln had naturally been anxious from the beginning of the war to re-establish civil government in and every one of the Confederate States where actual resistance should cease. A military autocracy controlling people who were engaged in the ordinary avocations of life was altogether contrary to his views of expediency, altogether repugnant to his conceptions of right. any |