army, to be beaten at another place. Jefferson Davis, who but a few weeks ago boasted that as yet nothing was lost, is flying with his government, and, bleeding and trampled on the ground, secession is lain in the dust. It is possible that Hood, Johnston and Hardee, the generals of the South still in the field, will venture on making a few desperate struggles. Sherman and Sheridan will soon, however, finish with them, and perhaps even within a few days we shall receive the news that Jefferson Davis, that great criminal, has carried his head, which totters on his shoulders now, to England. We call this Jefferson Davis a great crim tor, leader, and President of the Southern Confederation, not because he upheld the detestable principle of slavery, not because he defended a bad, worthless cause, with undeniable talent and persistency worthy of a better object, but because, after the South had lost its ports, and possessed nothing but Richmond, Wilmington, and Mobile, after defeat was certain, he rejected with haughty pride the hand which the North offered to the Richmond Government at the beginning of the last campaign of annihilation. out Europe: Can the American war be considered as over? The Confederate army has suffered a disastrous defeat; but as long as it is on foot, as long as the soldiers of Lee hold together, the struggle will still be possible. However, notwithstanding the brevity of the despatches from New York, and that we must make allowance for the natural exaggeration of the conquerors, if it be true that entire brigades of the Confederates have disappeared, if it be true that the army of the South has abandoned hundreds of cannon, and that its retreat is gravely endangered, we may certainly think that we now see the commencement of the end. Thus will finish, after four years of strug-nal, not because he was the chief instigagle, one of the most cruel and deplorable wars of modern times to speak with respect not to the effects (as the necessary consequence will be the extinction of slavery) but with respect to the immediate causes. The obstiacy and haughty avidity of some few men have let loose this scourge on the American continent. It will be those blind, ill· advised men, from the point of view of their own interests, who will bear the responsibility of the blood which has been shed. Instead of accepting a social transformation which had become inevitable, instead of making a compromise and accepting good conditions, they preferred referring the matter to the sword, and the sword has answered. For our part, notwithstanding the real satisfaction we experience at the triumph of the North, we cannot forget the many cruel ills brought on a people which has at all times been the ally of France so much public disaster, so much private sorrow. But as the crisis was to come with violence instead of being averted by wisdom and moderation, we are glad it has not been fruitless, and that the salutary example has been given to the world of the agreement of power and legality. THE GERMAN PRESS. (From Die Neue Frie Presse-Vienna; Liberal, April 16.) It is at an end this monstrous war, which pressed on Europe's trade and industry like an incubus, and after a long series of years we have again to record a fearfully bloody but complete victory of a just and noble cause. The stain of slavery is forever removed from the North American continent. And let no one imagine that their work of vengeance will begin on the still reeking battlefields. As the war has been carried on for four years without the freedom of the press, the right of holding meetings, or personal liberty being interfered with, so it will end without reprisals being taken on the vanquished, or their European accomplices. What many expected, and what we never feared, that the Americans after conquering the secession, would call England to account, there is no reason for believing from the intelligence from Washing ton. Satisfaction and compensation for the losses which England's Southern sympathies have caused the Union will be demanded; and we believe that we may assert that the The Liverpool telegraph could not bring representative of the American Government us any more joyful holiday intelligence than in London has already sent an account in to the great news that the most formidable and Earl Russell amounting to a hundred thoulast bulwark of the Southern Confederation sand (German money). . . An Anglohas at last been taken. Since the 3d inst. American war would have much worse efthe starry banner has waved from the stee- fects for our continent than the American ples of Petersburg and Richmond. The crisis, and be much more frightful, not to brave but unfortunate Lee is retreating speak of the fact that freedom could not with the ruins of his beaten and annihilated | but lose by the two freest states in the world tearing each other to pieces. We can there-pect, and sketch its broad outlines, and fore only hail with satisfaction the declaration make the reader see them as we see them— of the American Secretary of State, Seward, if we can. that the Washington Government will follow a policy of non-intervention both with respect to Canada and Mexico. The naval power of America, whom this war has made so fearfully conscious of her resources, will be felt quite enough without any declaration of war against France and England; and in particular the re-entrance of this important agent into the transaction of the affairs of the world will put a bridle on the policy of the Tuileries which can only be accompanied by the best results for the preservation of Euro pean peace. From the Spectator, April 22. 4 In the spring of 1864 the Federals had only established themselves in the fringe of the Confederate Slave States east of the Mississippi. Nowhere in Virginia were they more than three marches from Washington. They were masters of the strategic points of Tennessee, they prevailed throughout the course of the Father of Waters, but on the Atlantic coast, Mobile, Savannah, Charleston and Wilmington defied them. A swarm of gunboats, monitors, and larger ships cruised painfully to and fro, but were unable to prevent daring sailors in swift craft from entering and quitting at least two ports. A network of railways, as yet unbroken, radiated from Richmond, ran north-west as far as Staunton, with a branch from Gordonsville to Lynchburg, ran south-west by Danville to Augusta, Macon, Selma, Mobile, ELEVEN months of hard, unfaltering, in- ran south-east and south by Weldon through cessant warfare, waged upon a field extend- Wilmington to Charleston, Savannah, and ing from the Potomac to the Mississippi, Florida, while a line from Charleston to from the ocean to the central mountain Augusta, and a line from Wilmington to ranges of the eastern half of the North Greensboro' through Raleigh, and a line American continent, have been required to from Savannah through Atlanta towards the wrest the capital of the once formidable Tennessee, and from Augusta through AtlanConfederacy of the Slave States out of the ta to the mighty Alabama, connected State hands of the slaveowners. The operations with State, and the whole with the capital. of those eleven months we may call collect- Upon the entirety of this railway system the ively the siege of Richmond, for the capture safety of the Confederacy depended. No of Richmond and the defeat of the armies wagon transport could feed the armies and defending it defending it in Georgia and keep up stores of ammunition, because the the Carolinas, as well as in Virginia - were distances were so great that the whole South the motives which governed the conduct of could not have supplied animals in numbers the Federal Generals; and if the object in sufficient to do the work. This could only view has been attained more speedily than be done by the locomotive, the canal barges, the Federal Generals could have anticipa- and the river steamers. An army, as Sherted, we must attribute that to Grant's su- man discovered by experiment, could live perb tenacity and readiness to seize occa- upon the country so long as it was on the sion, and Sherman's fine military insight, move, but when it halted in a defensive posiwhich enabled him to see, and his high tion it must have a railroad or a river to feed courage, which enabled him to profit by it, go, or die. The railways were at once the the huge blunders of his adversaries. It is great element of the strength and the great the wonderful unity—a unity rarely at-element of the weakness of the South. They tained by separate armies in war upon so grand a scale of the operations of 186465, constituting them one campaign, which, when they are properly described, will make them of perennial interest not only to military and historical students, but to general readers. Intrinsically the operations of this year are worthy of the closest attention of professional soldiers, while the profound tragedy of the contest imparts to its incidents a force of attraction wider, deeper, and more powerful than that which they exert as illustrations of the art of war. We have here to deal with the military asTHIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL XXIX. were the strength, because they made the armed men in a sparsely-peopled and halfcultivated country available on its frontiers; they were the weakness, because if broken the armed men would be no longer available as they had been before. In former years the Federal Government employed separate commanders, but now they adopted the wise plan of appointing a military dictator. They selected General Grant to direct the whole of the military operations, and the result has amply justified the choice. Grant decided that there should be only two great lines of operation and two great 1343. armies, and that all partial attacks should cease. He determined to assail the railways of Virginia and Georgia, — of Virginia, because there stood the capital of the Confederacy; of Georgia, because in the heart of that State lay the nexus of the railway lines, and because possession of that nexus opened the plains to the Federal troops. Therefore he concentrated a great army in Virginia under his own hand, and he united the three armies of the south-west, armies which he himself had led to victory, and entrusted them to Sherman, his ablest lieutenant. It is these armies which have destroyed the Confederacy by defeating its soldiers and capturing its capital. Much they have owed to superiority of numbers and resources, much they have been favored by fortune; but the chief cause of their success is to be found in the skill of their leaders, who have known when to strike and when to wait and above all how to make a great blunder on the part of the adversary an irreparable calamity. General Grant designed to strike across the Virginian railways, isolate, and capture Richmond. His main army was massed on the North bank of the Rapidan, but his wings, each separate columns, each supposed to be strong enough to take care of itself, were at Harper's Ferry and Fortress Monroe. The right column was to fight its way to Staunton and march on Lynchburg, the left was to ascend the James and surprise the southern approaches to Richmond, while the main body crossing the Rapidan was to fight Lee, defeat him, and marching on the James cross it above Richmond, and thus secure its fall. It was Lee's business to frustrate this scheme, and well he did it. Lee was encamped on the road to Lynchburg and on the flank of the direct road to Richmond, and when Grant suddenly crossed the Rapidan last May, before he could completely array his immense army, Lee sprang upon him like a panther, thrust him into the depths of the Wilderness, gained time and opportunity to march across his front, and re-appear at Spottsylvania, barring the road to the Confederate capital. Grant, undismayed by this rough collision, closed in turn with his stout adversary, sustaining and inflicting great losses, losses he could bear better than his foe. But when he found that he could not burst through ramparts formed of fallen trees, Grant swept round the right flank of Lee, and Lee, not to be outdone, fell back upon the angle between the North and South Anna rivers. Here he was too strong to be attacked in front; once more the Federals circled round the right flank, and once more Lee on the shorter line was the first to reach the Chickahominy. In the mean time the Federal left army, under Butler, had surprised City Point, but had failed to seize Petersburg, and had been driven to intrench itself at Bermuda Hundred. Grant again tried force against Lee, who swiftly hurled him back, and then Grant, still resolute to "fight it out on that line," cleverly marched round Lee for the third time, and crossing the James appeared before Petersburg, but failed to snatch it. Lee, marching by the chord of the arc, took post in and about Petersburg, where he covered Richmond and its arterial railways. Now was the time to try the stamina of Grant. His plan had failed, his able foe had refused to be put off the roads to Richmond; there he stood as hardily as ever. But though the letter of the plan had failed, in the spirit it had succeeded, for Grant had planted himself impregnably close to the great Confederate lines of communication, and there he resolved to remain; that advantage he resolved to improve. When Hunter's unsoldierlike advance upon Lynchburg left the valley undefended, and when Early, rushing out of it, careered through Maryland, and insulted Baltimore and Washington, Grant rightly estimated the peril, and, not a whit frightened, supplied a prompt reinforcement, and again selected the right man, Sheridan, to defend the valley road to the rear of Washington. Moreover, he took and kept the Weldon Railroad, and thus reduced the Confederate communications to two- the road to Lynchburg and the road to Danville, which intersected each other at Burkesville junction. The Confederacy was wounded, but not mortally. The other grand army, that in the hands of Sherman, moved out of Chattanooga when Grant crossed the Rapidan. Its direct line of advance was the railway which winds through the mountains of northern Georgia, and, crossing the Chattahoochee, emerges in the plains. Along this line, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the other, Sherman directed his columns, flanking Johnston out of mountain strongholds, forcing him back over rivers, pressing on ever deeper and deeper into Georgia, until he crossed the Chattahoochee, and by a most skilful and decisive flank movement cut the Confederate Army in two and won Atlanta, the prize of a strenuous campaign. And while he had preserved with jealous care his own railway communications with Chattanooga, he had broken up the lines converging in Atlanta from the east, west, and south. Now came the real crisis in the Ridge, tearing up the railways nearly to war. The Confederate President made a false move, Sherman fixed it by one of those great and unexpected strokes which are the outward signs of true military genius. Mr. Davis thought that Sherman was an ordinary general, who would tremble and fly The crisis was now at hand. There was if his line of retreat were threatened. Mr. no armed force on foot of any moment Davis directed Hood to throw himself upon throughout the Confederacy, except the that line of retreat, and sent Beauregard to garrison in Richmond and the weak army of help him. The stroke was made between Johnston in North Carolina, and of the exAtlanta and Chattanooga; it failed, and tensive interior railway system naught reHood was forced to retreat into Northern mained intact except a part of the lines beAlabama, followed by his foe. Hood ought tween the James and the Congaree. Lee now to have returned sharply towards At- felt, had long felt, his danger in all its fullanta, but" Quem Deus"-instead of ness. His foes had gathered in council at doing so he resolved to invade Tennessee. City Point, for Sherman had come up in The blunder was flagrant, for Sherman, see-person from Goldsboro' and Mr. Lincoln ing the whole of Georgia at his mercy, re- from Washington. To anticipate the blow solved to profit by it, and marching to Savannah, destroying all the railways in his passage, to find a road to the sea, and bring his army through the heart of the Slave States to aid in the capture of Richmond. How that was done our readers know, and there are few, very few, finer things in the whole range of military history. Hood's army for months counted for nothing in the contest, and never recovered the crushing blow it received at Nashville just as Sherman found himself on the deck of one of Foster's gunboats. General Grant could not have anticipated that Sherman would be on the Atlantic coast so early as December, 1864, but having him there, he made instant use of him. As he had swept over and destroyed the Georgian railways, so Sherman, striking at the centre of the long and weak Confederate line, swept over and tore up the railways of South Carolina, forcing his foes upon divergent roads, and compelling them to yield up Charleston without a blow. At the same time part of the army which had defeated Hood at Nashville also arrived on the Atlantic coast, and completed the conquest of Wilmington, began when Porter and Terry won the works at the mouth of the Cape Fear River. Then Sherman once more set his troops in motion for the North, and marched almost unopposed by Cheraw to Fayetteville. For the first time since he quitted Atlanta he found a Confederate army at length prepared to dispute his path, but he brushed them aside with half his army, and joined at Goldsboro' the troops which had arrived there both by land and sea from Wilmington. Nor was the arrival of Sherman on the Neuse the only sign of Confederate weakness. Sheridan, so often victorious in the Shenandoah valley, had dashed up it at the head of his effective horsemen, crushing Early, crossing the Blue he saw about to fall, Lee made a desperate inroad upon Grant's lines, hoping to cut them in two and ruin the Federal army. Successful for a moment, he was soon repelled with heavy loss. Four days afterwards, on the 29th, Grant began his decisive movement. He marched out of his lines and flung his whole weight upon the Southside Railway, possession of which would give him Richmond. For three days, so strong were the Confederate lines, so valorous were their defenders, so densely wooded was the vast battle-ground, that the contest looked doubtful, but on the fourth day, April 1, Sheridan got well on the right flank of the Confederates, and by sheer fighting laid it flat and swept up the rear. Then the rest of the army made a combined attack, took redoubts and breastworks with the bayonet, and drove the Confederates over the Appomatox. This decided the fate of Petersburg and Richmond, which were abandoned by Lee in the night and occupied by the Federals in the morning, the first troops to enter Richmond being a coloured brigade. Lee's only hope of escape lay in a swift march upon Burkesville junction, where he would have been in communication with Johnston and Lynchburg. But Grant now showed that he could pursue with as much vigour as he could fight. Moving himself with two corps along the Southside Railroad, he sent Meade with three corps and Sheridan's horse along the roads on his right directly upon Lee's line of retreat. Sheridan, whose perception of vital points is so keen, fastened upon Jettersville, a station on the Danville road, a few miles from Amelia Court-house, so that when Lee reached that town he found the road to Burkesville junction barred. Lee turned off to Painesville, seeking a circuitous path has, for Europeans and Americans, only just commenced. to Lynchburg. Sheridan, learning this, urged Meade to exertion, and both direct ed their columns upon the road by which The gospel histories are peculiar even Lee must march. As he came up, Sheri- among histories. Setting aside for a modan, with his own men and such infantry ment (as not necessary to be considered in pure as he had in hand, fell fiercely on Lee's lay criticism, which treats a book only so far flank, and captured six generals, many as it is a product of human effort) the great guns, and thousands of prisoners. Had fact of their being inspired, the gospel narMeade been well up, Lee must there and ratives have this striking peculiarity- that then have been destroyed. Meade came while the scenery, the manners and customs, up at the end of the fight, in time to quick- the politics, the popular opinions, and the en the rush of the fugitives over Sailor's current events, are all implied in the story, Creek, an affluent of the Appomatox, five influencing its progress, modifying its miles west of Burkesville junction. From meaning, pointing its lessons, the scenery, this point, by flank movements, Lee was manners, opinions and events, are not dedriven west of Farmville. There the news scribed by the evangelists, to whom they leaves them, Meade and Sheridan being were familiar as the light of day and the stars close on the heels of Lee, Grant and Ord of night. A familiar knowledge of these asbeing between Lee and Johnston, while pects of nature, these conditions of men, Hancock, with 30,000 men, was on the now so dark to us of another race, another march from Winchester to Lynchburg- climate and another time, was quietly asLee's only line of retreat and place of ref- sumed. The assumption is a great misforuge. It was this swift and well-directed tune to distant readers, like the Franks; but pursuit of Lee, not less than the steady the assumption is a genuine fact, and we and skilful operations against his lines, that have no choice left us but to supply the demade this the decisive stroke of the war. ficiencies of our knowledge as best we may. The Confederacy is ruined from foundation It is useless to dream that we can do withto roof-tree, and is already a thing of the out this knowledge. Scenery and manners past. make the background on which the sacred history is limned. The great events of this history grow out of the common politics of the time,-out of the debates in Jewish schools, the conflicts in Roman councils; and its personal incidents are moulded by such things as the Flora and Fauna, the domestic architecture, the customs and habits of the country. There is probably no other book in literature in which common things have so much to do with the actual text, in which the reader's acquaintance with these common things is so completely taken on trust. The evangelists and apostles wrote for their countrymen and contemporaries. Most of their readers spoke Greek, nearly all of them knew something of Palestine. Matthew had no need to describe that Capernaum in saltic town, the Lord's own city; and he which he lived; his fellows all knew the bawould be lost. John was too familiar with never dreamt that the knowledge of its site Cana to say whether it lay north or east of Sephoris. Luke was too much at home in Jerusalem to think of telling us whether Calvary stood near the Pool of Hezekiah or near the Pool of Bethesda; though a hint from his pen would have saved the Church from one of its fiercest discussions. These writers knew the localities too well, and we have now to supplement these hints with elaborate study of localities, if we would say If we have made ourselves understood, the reader will marvel with us at the astonishing skill with which the Federal Generals have used the immense forces placed in their hands; and if we are not mistaken, the military student will in future years turn again and again for instruction to the campaigns of 1864-65, which abound in examples of the art of making war under the new conditions-railways, torpedoes, telegraphs, earthworks, rifled cannon and which have given a mortal blow to the once threatening Slave Power. From the Athenæum. The New Testament. Illustrated by a Plain THE noblest art, the keenest criticism, the amplest scholarship have all been lavished without stint on the sacred story; yet the glorious theme is so far from being exhausted by this splendid treatment, that we may safely assert, as a position capable of immediate proof, that the illustration of this story |