arrived. President Lincoln, mounted on a magnificent bay, adorned with heavy trappings, rode steadily and rapidly along the line, with Generals Hooker and Stoneman at his side, and followed by an imposing cavalcade of general officers, aides-de-camp and orderlies. Having returned to the right of the line, a position was selected for the President upon a slight eminence, while the cavalry at a walk passed in review before him, the bands playing and the bugles sounding merrily. Mrs. Lincoln occupied a carriage at the right of the President while the regiments passed in review, surrounded by major-generals and stars of lesser magnitude. After the cavalry had moved off the field, the lancers, in splendid order, wheeled around into line fronting the President, while the light artillery dashed at a gallop through the avenue thus formed, the guns and caissons bounding over the irregularities as though the wheels were of India rubber. The cannon were soon off the field, the lancers filed in behind the cavalcade of generals, spectators vanished, and the plateau, torn and trodden by the squadrons, was left to the scattering working parties engaged in preparing the ground for the grand review of infantry. The President also rode over to the head-quarters of several commanding officers, and during the day reviewed the reserve artillery.

Doubtless the lady readers are anxious to know in what dress the wife of the Chief Magistrate visited the army, how she appeared, what she said, and how she liked the contrast-the Executive mansion, with its costly furniture, and the bare floor, cot and camp stools of the field. Mrs. Lincoln's attire was exceedingly simple-of that peculiar style of simplicity which creates at the time no impression upon the mind, and prevents one from remembering any article of dress. In this case there was nothing to attract attention, and after she had entered the tent there was not one in twenty of those gathered about who

could tell what she wore. A rich black silk dress, with narrow flounces; a black cape, with a broad trimming of velvet around the border, and a plain hat of the same hue, composed her costume. A shade of weariness, doubtless the result of her labors in behalf of the sick and wounded in Washington, rested upon her countenance; but the change seemed pleasant to her, and the scenes of camp were noted with evident interest. The President wore a dark sack overcoat and a fur muffler, while Master Lincoln sported a suit of gray, and rambled about among the tents, examining the quarters of the staff, and watched by the orderlies and sentries with a curiosity somewhat amusing. THE ENROLMENT ACT AND THE RIGHTS OF ALIENS.

To enumerate all the proclamations which the President issued during the year 1863, would be impossible in this work, and we must therefore restrict ourselves to those which were of more than usual interest. The one in regard to the rights of aliens, under the act calling out the national forces, was one of these, and reads as follows:

"Whereas, The Congress of the United States at its last session enacted a law entitled, 'An act for enrolling and calling out the national forces and for other purposes,' which was approved on the third day of March last, and,

"Whereas, It is recited in the said act that there now exists in the United States an insurrection and rebellion against the authority thereof, and it is, under the Constitution of the United States, the duty of the Government to suppress insurrection and rebellion, to guarantee to each State a republican form of government, and to preserve the public tranquility, and

Whereas, For these high purposes a military force is indispensable, to raise and support which all persons ought willingly to contribute; and

"Whereas, No service can be more praiseworthy and honorable than that which is rendered for the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union, and the consequent preservation of the Government; and

"Whereas, For the reasons thus recited, it was enacted by the said statute that all able-bodied male citizens of the United States and persons of foreign birth, who shall have declared on

oath their intentions to become citizens, under and in pursuance of the laws thereof, between the ages of twenty and forty-five years, with certain exceptions not necessary to be here mentioned, are declared to constitute the national forces, and shall be liable to perform military duty in the service of the United States, when called out by the President for that purpose; and

"Whereas, It is claimed, and in behalf of persons of foreign birth within the ages specified in said act who have heretofore declared on oath their intentions to become citizens under and in pursuance of the laws of the United States, and who have not exercised the right of suffrage or any other political franchise under the laws of the United States, or any of the States thereof, are not absolutely precluded by their aforesaid declaration of intention from renouncing their purpose to become citizens, and that, on the contrary, such persons under treaties or the law of nations, retain a right to renounce that purpose and to forego the privilege of citizenship and residence within the United States under the obligations imposed by the aforesaid act of Congress.

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Now, therefore, to avoid all misapprehensions concerning the liability of persons concerned to perform the service required by such enactment, and to give it full effect, I do hereby order and proclaim 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 the sixty-five days from the date of this proclamation, nor shall any such plea of alienage be allowed in favor of any such person who has so as aforesaid declared his intention to become 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.

"In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the city of Washington, this eighth day of May, in the year of our Lord 1863, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

"By the President,

"ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

"WILLIAM H SEWARD, Secretary of State."

A NATIONAL THANKSGIVING ORDERED. On the fifteenth day of July, 1863, the President ordered the sixth of the following month to be set apart as

a day of National Thanksgiving.

Victories had crowned.

our arms on land and sea, and no greater cause for offering thanks to the Almighty ever prompted the Chief Magistrate of a country to call the people together, and few proclamations were ever written more chaste and beautiful than the following:

"It has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe to the army and the navy of the United States, on the land and on the sea, victories so signal and so effective as to furnish reasonable grounds for augmented confidence that the union of these States will be maintained, their constitutions preserved, and their peace and prosperity permanently preserved.

"But these victories have been accorded not without sacrifice of life, limb and liberty, incurred by the brave, patriotic and loyal citizens. Domestic affliction in every part of the country follows in the train of these fearful bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father, and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs and these sorrows.

"Now, therefore, be it known, that I do set apart Thursday, the sixth day of August next, to be observed as a day for national Thanksgiving, praise, and prayer, and I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship, and in the forms approved by their own conscience, render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation's behalf, and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insurgents, to guide the counsels of the government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with tender care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land all those who through the vicissitudes of marches, voyages, battles and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body or estate and family, to lead the whole nation through paths of repentance and submission to the Divine Will, back to the perfect enjoy. ment of Union and fraternal peace.

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'In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

"Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred aud sixtythree, and of the independence of the United States of America the eighty-eighth. "ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

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By the President:

"WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT ON THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.

The following letter, written in August, 1863, in answer to an invitation to attend a meeting of unconditional Union men held in Illinois, gives at length the President's views at that time on his Emancipation proclamation:

“EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, August 26th, 1863. "MY DEAR SIR:-Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the capitol of Illinois on the third day of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends at my own home; but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require. The meeting is to be of all those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hope can make false to the nation's life. There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say :-You desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. But how can we attain it? There are but three conceivable ways:-First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so far we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are, you should say so, plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginable compromise. I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military-its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of any terms made by any man or men within that range in opposition to that army is simply nothing for the present, because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. To illustrate : Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North get together in convention, and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing the restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to keep General Lee's army out of Pennsylvania? General Meade's army can keep Lee's army out of Pennsylvania, and I think can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers of General Lee's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we would waste time which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage, and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with