Vickipedia

After an excited contest, Missouri was admitted, with a compromise resolution, that in future no slave state should be erected north of the parallel of 36° 30′ N. lat.—the northern boundary of Arkansas. During the second term of Mr. Monroe, in 1824, General Lafayette visited America, and was everywhere received with great enthusiasm. In the presidential election of 1824, there were four candidates—John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H. Crawford. There being no choice by the people, the House of Representatives chose Mr. Adams; John C. Calhoun being elected Vice-president. Party and sectional feeling became stronger- Mr. Adams and Mr. Clay, who had heretofore acted with the party of Jefferson and Madison, were henceforth identified with what was called the National Republican, and later, the Whig, and finally, in union with the Anti-slavery party, the Republican party. In 1826, two of the founders of the republic, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died on the 4th of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence —an event which made a profound impression. The four years of Mr. Adams, during which there were violent contests on protection and the powers of the Federal government to carry out public works within the states, ended with an excited election contest, which resulted in the triumph of the Democratic part}’, and the election of Andrew Jackson, with John C. Calhoun as Vice-president.

The bold, decisive, and impetuous character of General Jackson was shown in a general removal of those who held office, down to small postmasters and tide-waiters, under the late administration, and the appointment of his own partisans. An act for the re-chartering of the U. S. Bank was met by a veto of the President, who declared it unconstitutional and dangerous. In 1832. an Indian war, called the Black Hawk War, broke out in Wisconsin; but the passing of a high protective tariff act by Congress caused a more serious trouble. The state of South Carolina declared the act unconstitutional, and therefore null and void, threatening to withdraw from the Union if an attempt were made to collect the duties oil foreign importations. The President prepared to execute the laws by force; Mr. Calhoun resigned his office of Vice-president, and asserted the doctrine of state-rights, including the right of secession, in the Senate. A collision seemed imminent, when the affair was settled by a compromise bill, introduced by Henry Clay, providing for a gradual reduction of duties, until 1843, when they should not exceed 20 per cent, ad valorem.

The popularity of General Jackson caused his re-election by an overwhelming majority against Henry Clay, the leader of the Bank, Protection, and Internal Improvement party; and he entered upon his second term with Martin Van Buren of New York as Vice President. The removal of the government deposits from the U. S. Bank to certain state banks, led to the failure of the bank, and after some years, to the adoption of Mr. Van Buren’s plan of an independent treasury. The Cherokee Indians in Georgia, who had attained to a certain degree of civilization, appealed to the President for protection against the seizure of their lands by the state; but they were told that he had no power to oppose the exercise of the sovereignty of any state over all who may be within its limits;’ and the Indians were obliged to remove to the territory set apart for them west of the Mississippi. In 1835, the Seminole war broke out in Florida; and a tribe of Indians, insignificant in numbers, under the crafty leadership of Osceola (q. v.), kept up hostilities for years, at a cost to the U. S of several thousands of men and some fifty millions of dollars. In 1837, Martin Van Buren succeeded General Jackson in the presidency. His term of four years was a stormy one, from the great financial crisis of 1837, which followed a period of currency-expansion and wild speculation. All the banks suspended payment, and the great commercial cities threatened insurrection.

Mr. Van Buren was firm in adhering- to his principle of collecting the revenues of the government in specie, and separating the government from all connection with the banks. His firmness in acting against the strong sympathies of the northern and western states with the Canadian insurrection of 1837—1838, also damaged his popularity; and in 1840, the election of General Harrison, with John Tyler for Vice-president, was one of unexampled excitement, characterized by immense popular gatherings, political songs, the use of symbols, and the participation of botli sexes to a degree hitherto unknown in America. The Whigs triumphed in nearly every state; General Harrison was inaugurated March 4, 1841; and the rush to Washington for offices was as great as the election had been exciting and remarkable. Worn down with the campaign and the office-seekers, General Harrison died in a month after his inauguration, and was succeeded by John Tyler, who, having been a. Democrat, was no sooner in power than he seems to have reverted to his former political principles. He vetoed a hi 11 for the establishment of a national bank and other measures of the party by which he had been elected. His cabinet resigned, with the exception of Daniel Webster, Secretary of State, and others, Democratic or neutral, were appointed in their place. During Mr. Tyler’s administration, the north-eastern boundary question, which nearly occasioned a war with England, was settled by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton; a difficulty amounting almost to a. rebellion, was settled in Rhode Island; but the most important question agitated was that of the annexation of Texas. This annexation was advocated by the South, as a large addition to southern and slave territory; and, for the same reason, opposed by the Whig and anti-slavery parties of the North. Besides, the independence of Texas, though acknowledged by the U. S., England, and France, had not been acknowledged by Mexico, audits annexation would be a casus belli with that power. The recent admissions of Iowa and Florida into the Union had kept the balance of power even between North and South, but Texas would be an advantage to the South. But the gain of territory, and a contempt for Mexico, overcame these objections, and in 1845, Texas was formally annexed to the U. S.; and James K. Polk of Tennessee succeeded Mr. Tyler in the presidency.

M. Almonte, the Mexican minister at Washington, protested against the annexation of Texas, as an act of warlike aggression; and to guard against a threatened invasion of Texas, General Zachary Taylor was ordered, with the U. S. troops of his military district, to its southern frontier. The Mexicans crossed the Rio Grande, and commenced hostilities, April 36, 1845. General Taylor moved promptly forward, and won the victories of Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, Saltillo, and finally, against great odds—20,000 to 4759—the hard-fought battle of Buena Vista, a victory that excited great enthusiasm. In the meantime, General Wool had been sent on an expedition to Chihuahua, in Northern Mexico; General Kearney to New Mexico; and Captain Fremont and Commander Stockton took possession of California. March 9, 1847, General Scott landed at Vera Cruz, which he took on the 29th, after a siege and bombardment by land and water. Marching into the interior with a force of about 9000 men, he found General Santa Anna intrenched on the Heights of Cerro Gordo with 15,006 men. On April 18, every position was taken by storm, with 3000 prisoners, 43 cannon, 5000 stand of arms, &c. Waiting at Puebla for reinforcements until August, General Scott advanced with 11,000 men towards Mexico, near which General Santa Anna awaited him with large forces and in strong positions. On the 19th and 20th of August were fought the battles of Contreras and Churubusco, in which 9000 Americans vanquished an army of over 30,000 Mexicans in strongly fortified positions.

After a brief armistice, hostilities recommenced on the 7th September; and after a series of sanguinary actions, the American army, reduced to about 8000, entered the city of Mexico, which ended the war. By the treaty of Guadalupe, the U. S. obtained the cession of New Mexico and Upper California, the U. S. paying Mexico $15,000,000, and assuming the payment of the claims of American citizens against Mexico. The opposition to the annexation of Texas, and to the war and the acquisition of the newly-acquired territory, became now complicated and intensified by sectional feelings and the opposition to slavery. The Northern party demanded that slavery should never be introduced into territories where it had not existed; the South claimed the right of her people to emigrate into the new territories, carrying with them their domestic institutions. During the debates on the acquisition of the Mexican territories, Mr. Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced an amendment, called the ‘ Wilmot Proviso,’ providing that there should be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the acquired territory. This was voted down, but became a party principle. In 1849, General Taylor, the ‘ Rough and Ready’ victor of Buena Vista, became President, with Millard Fillmore as Vice-president. The Free-soil party* [footnote: *The Free-soil party opposed the extension of slavery by the admission of new slave states, while recognizing its legal and constitutional existence where already established.] had nominated Martin Van Buren, with Charles Francis Adams for Vice-president; the Democratic candidate being General Lewis Cass.

The Liberty party in 1840 had cast 7609 votes; in 1844, it had 62,300; Mr. Van Buren in 1848 received 291,263, so rapid was the growth of a party soon destined to control the policy of the government. September 1, 1849, California, rapidly peopled by the discovery of gold, adopted a constitution which prohibited slavery. Violent struggles and debates in Congress followed with threats of secession, and protests against interference with slavery. The more zealous abolitionists of the North denounced the constitution for its support of slavery, and its requirement of the return of fugitive slaves to their owners, and threatened separation. The South denounced the violation of the constitution by interference with slavery—a domestic institution of the states—the carrying off of negroes secretly by organized societies, and what was termed the ‘Underground Railway,” and the passage of personal liberty bills in several states, which defeated the Fugitive Slave Law, and the requirements and guarantees of the constitution. Mr. Clay introduced a compromise into Congress, admitting California as a free state, and introducing a new and more stringent law for the rendition of fugitive slaves. President Taylor, more used to the rough life of a frontier soldier than the cares of state, died July 9, 1850, and was succeeded by Mr. Fillmore.

The election of Franklin Pierce in 1852, against General Scott, was a triumph of the Democratic, States’ Rights, and Southern party. Jefferson Davis, a senator from Mississippi, a son-in-law of General Taylor, and who had served under him in Mexico, was appointed Secretary of War. New elements were added to tution of slavery. The struggles of Kansas, approaching a civil war between the Free-soil and Pro-slavery parties in that rapidly growing territory, resulted in the exclusion of slavery. A brutal assault upon Mr. Sunnier, senator from Massachusetts, by a Southerner, named Preston Brooks, in consequence of a violent speech on Southern men and institutions, increased the excitement of both sections. The formation of an Anti-foreign and No-popery party, called the ‘Know-nothing’ party, acting chiefly through secret societies, was a singular but not very important episode in American politics, though it may have influenced the succeeding election.

In 1856, the Republicans, composed of the Northern, Free-soil, and Abolition parties, nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency; while the Democratic and States’ Rights party nominated James Buchanan. Ex-president Fillmore received the Know-nothing nomination. The popular vote was—for Buchanan, 1,838,169; Fremont, 1,341,264; Fillmore, 874,534. Mr. Buchanan was inaugurated March 4. 1857, with John C. Breckenridge, afterwards a general of the Confederate army, as Vice-president. A difficulty with the Mormons, which caused the President to send a military force to Utah, was settled without bloodshed. The efforts of the government to execute the Fugitive Slave Law kept up an irritated feeling. There were savage fights between the northern and southern parties in Kansas, and on the western borders of Missouri. Resolute and well-armed settlers were sent out by New England emigration societies. In October 1859, John Brown, known in Kansas as ‘ Ossawattamie Brown,’ who. with his sons, had been engaged in the struggles in Kansas, planned and led an expedition for freeing the negroes in Virginia. He made his attempt at Harper’s Ferry, on the Potomac, where, after a vain attempt to induce the negroes to join him, he and his small party took possession of one of the government workshops, where he was taken prisoner by a party of U. S. soldiers, and handed over to the authorities of Virginia, tried and executed, December 2. His body was taken to his home in New York for burial, and he was regarded by the Abolition party as a martyr.

In 1860, the Democratic party, which, except at short intervals, had controlled the Federal government from the election of Jefferson in 1800. became hopelessly divided. The Southern delegates withdrew from the convention at Charleston, and two Democratic candidates were nominated, Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois, and John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky; while the Republicans, or united Whig and Abolition party, nominated Abraham Lincoln of Illinois; and the Native or American party nominated John Bell of Tennessee. The Republican convention adopted a moderate and even conservative ‘ platform ‘ of principles, denounced the John Brown raid, and put forward as a principle, ‘ the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively.’ Still, the country was sectionally divided, and all who had labored to limit and destroy the Southern institution of slavery were acting with the Republican party.

At the election of November 1860, Mr. Lincoln received every Northern vote in the electoral college, excepting the three of New Jersey, which were given to Mr. Douglas, 180 votes; while Mr. Breckenridge received the 72 electoral votes of the South. The North and South were arrayed against each other, and the South was beaten. Of the popular vote, Mr. Lincoln received 1,857,610; Mr. Douglas, 1,365,976; Mr. Breckenridge, 847,951; Mr. Bell, 590,631. Thus, while Mr. Lincoln gained an overwhelming majority of the electoral votes given by each state, the combined Democratic votes exceeded his by 356,317, and the whole popular vote against him exceeded his own by 946,948. A small majority, or even plurality, in the .Northern states was sufficient to elect him.

The South lost no time in acting upon what her statesmen had declared would be the signal of their withdrawal from the Union. On the 10th of November, as soon as the result was known, the legislature of South Carolina ordered a state convention, which assembled December 17, and on the 20th unanimously declared that ‘ the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states, under the name of the United States, is hereby dissolved;’ giving as a reason that 14 of these states had for years refused to fulfill their constitutional obligations. The example of South Carolina was followed by Mississippi, January 8, 1861; Florida, 10th; Alabama, 11th; Georgia., 19th; which were followed by Louisiana and Texas; and in 1861, by North Carolina. Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas, Kentucky and Missouri were divided, and had representatives in the governments and armies of both sections.

On the 4th of February 1861, delegates from the seven then seceded states met at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a provisional government, under the title of the Confederate States of America. A constitution was adopted similar to that of the U.S.. and the government fully organized, February 18, 1861; President, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi; Vice-president, Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia; and, May 24, established at Richmond, Virginia. The secession movement appears to have been nearly unanimous in the more Southern states, and to have been carried in all by decided majorities. As state after state withdrew from the Union, its senators and representatives in Congress at Washington resigned their seats; and nearly all the officers of the army and navy of Southern birth, believing that their first and final allegiance was due to their states, and that the action of each state carried with it all its citizens, also resigned their commissions, and tendered their swords to their respective states, and to the Confederacy they had formed.

President Buchanan, doubting his constitutional power to compel the seceding states to return to the Union, made a feeble and ineffectual attempt to relieve the garrison of Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, closely besieged by the forces of South Carolina. Commissioners were sent to Washington to negotiate for the settlement of the claims of the Federal government, and great efforts were mode to effect compromises of the difficulties, but without result.

On the 4th of March 1861, President Lincoln was inaugurated at Washington. In his address, he said: ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe that I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.’ On the 7th of April, a naval expedition set sail from New York for the relief of Fore Sumter; and its arrival off Charleston Harbor was the signal for the commencement of a bombardment of the fort by the Confederate batteries of General Beauregard. The surrender of the fort, April 11, was followed by a sudden outburst of excited feeling in the North. The government called out 75,000 volunteers, large numbers of whom were in a few days marching to the defence of Washington. April 18, the Confederates seized the U. S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, and took or destroyed a large quantity of arms and machinery. On the 20th, the navy-yard, near Norfolk, Va., was destroyed by the U. S. officers, and five large men-of-war burned or sunk, to prevent their falling into the hands of the Confederates. Opposed to the Federal volunteers assembled at Washington, the Confederates took up a position at Bull Bun, a few miles distant from the Potomac, under General Beauregard. where they were attacked by General M’Dowell. A severe action resulted in the repulse and complete panic of the Federals, who hastily retreated to Washington. Congress saw that it must act in earnest, and that the rebellion was not to be put down in 90 days by 75,000 volunteers. It voted to call out 500,000 men.

The Confederate States had a population of 5.582,122 free inhabitants, and 3,519,902 slaves; total, 9,102.024; and though the negroes were not called into the field except as laborers, they were not less useful in supplying the armies, by carrying on the agricultural labor of the country. The Confederates had also the strong sympathy and aid of the four slaveholding border states, prevented by their position from seceding—Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.

Holding their position in Virginia, the Confederates erected fortifications on the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, and on important points of the Mississippi, from Columbus, in Kentucky, to its mouth. They also made a strong effort to secure the state of Missouri, as well as to defend the seaports through which they must receive their most important supplies from abroad. The Federal government, on its side, blockaded the whole line of coast from Virginia to Texas, and sent large forces to secure the doubtful states. Gun-boats were rapidly built for the rivers of the west, and vessels purchased and constructed for the navy. In December 1861, the Federals had 640,000 men in the field; and the Confederates had 210,000, and bad called for 400,000 volunteers.

The first important operation of 186,2 was the taking the defences of the Cumberland and Tennessee rivers (February 6), which led to the occupation of Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, henceforth held by the. Federals—Andrew Johnson, formerly governor and senator, having been appointed military governor. Roanoke Island was also captured, on the coast of North Carolina. In March, General M’Clellan, who had succeeded the aged Lieutenant-general Scott as commander-in-chief, commenced a movement on Richmond, the seat of the Confederate government, now defended by General Lee. On the 8th of March, the Confederate iron-clad Virginia, constructed from the U. S. steamer Merrimac, which had been sunk at Norfolk, and raised by the Confederates, attacked the Federal fleet in Hampton Roads, and in 40 minutes sunk the Cumberland, and set on fire and captured the Congress (frigates); while the other vessels took refuge in shoal water or in flight. The next day, the Monitor, a war vessel of entirely novel construction, low and flat, with a revolving turret, invented by Captain Ericcson, engaged the Virginia. The battle lasted two hours without result.

On the 6th of April, a sanguinary but indecisive battle was fought near Corinth, Alabama, the Federals being protected by gun-boats. Soon after, Admiral Farragut, with a fleet of 45 vessels, carried the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi river, and

took New Orleans; while the armies and gun-boats captured the fortifications on the upper part of the river as low as Memphis, Tennessee. In the meantime, General M’Clellan had besieged and taken Yorktown, and fought his way up the peninsula of the James River, until within five miles of Richmond, when he was beaten in a series of sanguinary battles, and driven, with a loss, in six days, of 15,000 men, to the shelter of his gun-boats; while Generals Banks and Pope, sent to co-operate with him in the Shenandoah Valley, were defeated and driven back by General ‘ Stonewall ‘ Jackson. On the 1st of July, the President called for 300,000, and August 4, 300,000 more men for the Federal army. Congress abolished slavery in the district of Columbia, prohibited it in the territories, and passed a resolution to compensate the masters in any state that would abolish slavery. They also authorized the President to employ negroes in the army, and to confiscate the slaves of rebels. In August, the Federals were a second time defeated at Bull Run, and General Lee crossed the Potomac into Maryland, creating great alarm in Washington, and even in Philadelphia. General M’Clellan made a rapid march, and met him at Sharpsburg or Antietam. A drawn battle resulted in the retreat of General Lee, covering an immense train of provisions, horses, cattle, &c., which was probably the object of his expedition.

A Confederate invasion of Kentucky, about the same time, was attended with similar results. Another advance on Richmond was led by General Burnside, who had superseded General M’Clellan; but he was confronted by General Lee at Fredericks-burg, and defeated in. one of the most sanguinary battles of the war. President Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring the freedom of all the slaves in the rebel states, which it was expected might cause them to rise against their masters; but it was without result. While the army of the Potomac was vainly endeavoring to advance on Richmond, the army of Tennessee, under General Rosencranz, with its base at Nashville, was trying to sever the Atlantic from the Gulf States, and cut off the railways that supplied the Confederate armies in Virginia. At Murfreesborough Tennessee, the Confederate General Bragg attacked General Rosencranz with the usual result of heavy looses on both sides, but no decided victory.

Early in May 1868, General Hooker, who had succeeded General Burnside in the command of the army of the Potomac, crossed the Rappahannock, and was defeated by General Lee at Chancellorsville with great slaughter; but this victory was dearly bought by the loss of General Jackson, mortally wounded in mistake by his own soldiers. General Lee now took the offensive, and invaded Pennsylvania, advancing as far as Harrisburg; but being met by General Meade, the new commander of the army of the Potomac. he attacked him in a strong position at Gettysburg without success, and was compelled to recross the Potomac. In the meantime, the two principal fortresses of the Mississippi, Vicksburg and Port Hudson, attacked by land and water, after a long siege, were starved into capitulation, and the entire river was open to Federal gun-boats.

Charleston, blockaded since the beginning of the war, was now strongly besieged—its outworks, Forts Gregg and Wagner, taken, Fort Sumter battered in pieces, but still held as an earthwork, and shells thrown a distance of five miles into the inhabited part of the city. In September, General Rosencranz had taken the strong position of Chattanooga, and penetrated into the north-west corner of Georgia, where he was disastrously defeated by General Bragg at the battle of Chickamauga. At this period, there were great peace-meetings in the North, terrible riots in New York against the conscription and the negroes; while the banks having suspended specie payments, the paper-money of both Federals and Confederates was largely depreciated. The Confederates were, however, cut off from all foreign aid, except what came to them through the blockade, and their own resources, both of men and material, were becoming exhausted. The railways were worn, many destroyed or occupied by the Federals, and it became difficult to transport supplies and feed armies. The Federals had command of the sea, and access to all the markets of Europe.

At the commencement of 1864, the Federals held, including the garrisons on the Mississippi, nearly 100,000 prisoners of war. The Southerners also had about 40.000 Federal prisoners, whom they could feed with difficulty, and who suffered great hardships. General Ulysses S. Grant, who had been successful at Vicksburg. was appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal armies, and commenced a vigorous campaign over an immense area—in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Arkansas, with the determination ‘ to hammer continuously against the armed forces of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition he should be forced to submit.’ Of the Confederates, General Lee defended Petersburg and Richmond; General J. E Johnston opposed the army of Tennessee at Dalton, Georgia; General Forrest was in Mississippi; General Taylor and Kirby Smith commanded in Louisiana and Arkansas. In February. General Sherman marched from Vicksburg, making a destructive raid across Northern Mississippi to Alabama. In March, the Federals bad 1,000.000 of men raised and provided for. The entire Confederate forces probably numbered 250,000. The army of the Potomac, commanded by General Meade. under the personal superintendence of General Grant, covered Washington, and advanced toward Richmond. General Butler advanced from Fortress Monroe up the James River; General Sigel marched up the Shenandoah. Sherman united the armies of Tennessee, Cumberland, and Ohio, at Chattanooga, where he had nearly 100,000 men and 250 guns. General Banks had 61.000 men in Louisiana. In March, General Banks moved up the lied River, toward Shrieveport, but was defeated on the 24th, and driven back to New Orleans. In May, the campaign of Virginia commenced, and the army of the Potomac fought a series of battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court-house, Jericho’s Ford, North Anna, and Cold Harbor, with terrible losses. After each repulse, the Federals took up a new position further south, with a new base, until they had made half the circuit of the Confederate capital. General Breckenridge defeated Sigel in the Shenandoah valley, and once more threatened Washington. General Sheridan, with a strong cavalry force, drove back the Confederates, and laid waste the valley. In September, General Sherman advancing with a superior force, captured Atlanta. General Hood, superseding Johnston in the command of the Confederates, was out-generaled and beaten. While lie marched west to cut off General Sherman’s base, and attack Nashville, where he was defeated, Sherman burned Atlanta, destroyed the railway, and marched boldly through Georgia to Savannah. The Confederates made strong efforts and won victories, but with no permanent result.

In 1865, the Federals made a new draft for 500,000 men. Expeditions were organized against Mobile. Wilmington, the most important Confederate port, was taken by a naval and military expedition. Savannah and Charleston, approached in the rear by Sherman, were evacuated. Cavalry raids cut off the railways and canal that supplied the Confederate army in Petersburg and Richmond. Finally, on March 29, 1865, a series of assaults was made upon the Confederate works, during ten days of almost continual fighting, until the Confederates were worn down with fatigue. Richmond and Petersburg were evacuated April 2; and on the 9th, after several conflicts, General Lee surrendered at Appomatox Court-house, his army numbering 28,000. At this period, it is said that there was not lead enough remaining in the Confederate States to fight a single battle. On the 12th, Mobile surrendered with 3000 prisoners and 300 guns. Then General Johnston, in North Carolina, surrendered a few days after to General Sherman; and the Trails-Mississippi Confederate army followed his example.

The war was scarcely ended, when 800,000 men were paid off. During the war, the number of men called for by the Federal government was 2,759,049; the number actually furnished was 2,653,062. Of colored troops there were 186,097. The state of New York, with a pop. of less than 4,000,000, sent 223,836 volunteers. There was an annual waste of one-third, half of which was by wounds in battle. The Federal losses during the war were estimated at 316,000. In 1864, the Confederate army consisted of 30,000 artillery, 128,000 cavalry, 400,951 infantry; the entire available force enrolled did not exceed 600,000. The Confederate losses are said to have amounted to 300,000.

Mr. Lincoln was in 1865 triumphantly re-elected to the presidency, with Andrew Johnson as Vice-president. On April 14, while the North was rejoicing over the capture of Richmond and the surrender of the Confederate armies, the President was assassinated at a theater in Washington, by John Wilkes Booth, an actor; while an accomplice attacked and nearly killed Mr. Seward, Secretary of State. The assassin was pursued and killed, and several of his accomplices tried and executed. Andrew Johnson became President. Jefferson Davis and the members of the Confederate government were supposed to be privy to the assassination of President Lincoln, and large rewards were offered for their apprehension. Mr. Davis was captured in Georgia, and placed in Fortress Monroe, but was released without trial in May 1867. An amendment to the constitution, for ever abolishing slavery in the states and territories of the union, was declared ratified by two-thirds of the states, December 18. 1865. The vast change in the organization of the republic made by this new fundamental law was completed by the 14th and 15th amendments, passed in 1868 and 1870, which gave to the former slaves all the rights and privileges of citizenship. The seceded states were readmitted to the Union on condition of their adhesion to the constitution as thus amended. In 1867, the United States acquired by purchase the whole of Russian America (see ALASKA).

In 1872, the Alabama (q. v.) Court of Arbitration gave its decree in favor of the United States, while the San Juan boundary dispute with Great Britain was settled on the same side by the Emperor of Germany. The outrages of a secret organization known as the Ku-Klux Klan, in the Southern States, necessitated the passing of an act in 1871, giving cognizance of such offences to the U. S. Courts. In 1875, great excitement was created in the States by the discovery of grave malversations on the part of citizens holding high rank in the public service. The year 1876, memorable in the annals of the Republic as the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, was celebrated by a great Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. The presidential election of the same year was of more than usual interest. General Ulysses S. Grant (q. v.), chosen President in 1869, had been re-elected in 1873. When the result of the keenly-contested election towards the close of 1876 was made known, it seemed as if fortune had favored the Democratic party. But many of the returns from the various States were disputed; and for several months the intensest excitement prevailed. At last a special tribunal, selected from the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Judges of the Supreme Court, was appointed to examine the election returns. The result was that Mr. Hayes, the Republican candidate, was declared to have been elected President, and inaugurated March 4, 1877. His Democratic rival was Mr. Tilden.

A period of great commercial depression, not peculiar to America, reached a height in 1877, and was accompanied by alarming difficulties between labor and capital. In 1878, a measure was passed, in spite of the President’s veto, making silver a legal tender equally with gold, though the former was then 11 per cent, less in value. A marvelous recovery in trade rendered comparatively easy in 1879 the resumption of specie payments, which had been strenuously opposed by the Democrats. An extraordinary movement took place amongst the negroes of the Southern States in 1879; a regular ‘ negro exodus ‘ northward and westward created some anxiety. Antipathy to the Chinese immigrants in the Pacific states raised a violent agitation, which threatened a new constitution to California; but the excitement declined in 1879. Bad harvests in Europe increased the already enormous exportation of grain from the U. S. The wheat crop and exportation in 1880 were unparalleled, but the crop of 1881 was, owing to unfavorable weather, much diminished. In 1879, there was, for the first time since the Civil War, a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress; and a term of office seemed to the Democrats at last to be at hand. But the presidential elections in 1880 gave a large majority for the Republican General Garfield, though the ‘ Solid South ‘ voted for General Hancock, the Democratic candidate.

An item of special interest in the contest was the promotion of General Grant’s claim to a third term of office; but the ex-president’s candidature was withdrawn before the end of the struggle. President Garfield, who was an outspoken advocate of civil service reform, was installed in March 1881. To the horror of his fellow-citizens and of all the civilized communities in the world, he was struck down on 3d July by the hand of an assassin; but not till 19th September did lie succumb to the effects of the fatal shot. Thereupon the vice-president. General Chester Allan Arthur, succeeded to the supreme office, assuming the presidentship on 23d September.

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United States, Western Part