A fleet had been sent to meet Sherman at Savannah, and it arrived, in command of Admiral Dahlgren, about the time Sherman began the investment of the city. He received immediate communication with the admiral, and General Foster who was on board. He asked no help but a few siege guns, and in three days the city fell. Of the campaign to this point General Sherman wrote to the Secretary of War: "The army has marched over 300 miles in 24 days, directly through the heart of Georgia, and reached the sea with its subsistence trains almost unbroken. In the entire march five officers and 58 men were killed, 13 officers and 232 men wounded; one officer and 258 men missing, making a total list of casualties of but 577 of all ranks; while 1,338 Confederate officers and men were made prisoners. Ten thousand negroes left the plantations of their former masters, and accompanied the column when it reached Savannah; over 20,000 bales of cotton were burned, besides 25,000 captured at Savannah; 13,000 head of beef cattle, 9,500,000 pounds of corn; 10,500,000 of fodder were taken from the country and issued to the men and animals. The men lived mainly on the sheep, hogs, turkeys, geese, chickens, sweet potatoes and rice, gathered by the foragers from the plantations along the route of each day's march. Sixty thousand men, taking merely of the surplus which fell in their way as they marched rapidly on the main roads, subsisted for three weeks in the very country where the Union prisoners at Andersonville were starved to death or idiocy; 5,000 horses and 4,000 mules were impressed for the cavalry and trains; 320 miles of railway were destroyed, and the last remaining links of communication between the Confederate armies in Virginia and the West effectually severed, by burning every tie, twisting every rail while heated red-hot over the flaming piles of ties, and laying in ruin every depot, engine house, repair shop, water tank and turn-table."

The announcement of this victory at the North was as great a relief to the public as it was to the President. Nothing had been heard from this army since it left Atlanta, except what was limited and unreliable through the Richmond papers. As to whether that critical undertaking was proving a success, or that well-appointed army was being repulsed, or starved into surrender, the wisest had their fears. But when assured that the expedition so far had been little more than a walk-over of the richest and most populous of the Southern States, and that the best Southern seaport not in our hands had been surrendered to us, it was apparent that the last resources of the Confederacy were failing them, and that the last resolute efforts of the North to re-enforce her armies, and save the Republic, were proving a success. The West had been pouring down her troops and supplies into the valley of the Mississippi, with a prodigality and determination that was now reaping its reward, while the East with equal spirit and the same sclf-sacrifice was providing Grant with all the troops he needed to supply the waste of the Wilderness, and hold Lee in his remorseless grasp until he, too, must surrender. The inspiration of such a victory at the North, as well as the discouragement of such a defeat upon the South, could only hasten the end.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE ELECTIONS IN 1864.

Governor Buckingham Again Re-elected-The Voting of Soldiers in the Field-Governor Buckingham's Words on Slavery in His Message-Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment-Mr. Lincoln Re-elected.

While we have been following the military operations of the year, we have lost sight, for the time, of the action of the President, the doings of Congress, the work of the Northern governors and their Legislatures, and the presidential election of this year. The Governor of Connecticut, we know, was never more busy in meeting the demand for troops, or the Legislature more united and efficient in sustaining the general government, or more resolute in their determination to put down the rebellion. And what was true of this State and its Governor, was true of every other Northern State.

An

The spring election in Connecticut this year was quiet and resulted in the re-election of Governor Buckingham. The "Peace Movement," in sympathy with the "Draft Riots" of New York city the previous year, and the attempt to prevent the soldiers from voting, had been pretty much disposed of when this election came. extra session of the Legislature of four days had just been held at Hartford and devoted to this subject. At a previous session the Democratic members had opposed such a measure, on the ground that it was unconstitutional. This session was to propose an amendment of the Constitution, allowing all electors of the State in the volunteer military service of the United States to vote in the field during the rebellion. This amendment was adopted in the House of

nays.

Representatives by a strict party vote of 117 yeas to 77 The Senate was not required to vote upon it, as such a measure must be submitted to a subsequent Legislature, and then submitted to the Senate, before it was referred to the people at large for adoption by the popular vote. At the regular session in May this year (1864), the message of the Governor, it is said, "exhibited the same calm dignity, clear statements, and intense loyalty, that had characterized his previous official communications. He thus tersely stated the argument for the amendment giving the soldiers the ballot: "Freemen who sustain and protect a government by baring their bosoms to the deadly shafts of its enemies, should have an opportunity to express an opinion in respect to its policy and the character and qualification of its officers."* In this same message, Governor Buckingham thus expressed his own convictions, and those of his State, not only in regard to the prosecution of the war, but in respect to slavery as the cause of it:—

Slavery is not dead. Its life is in the custody of its friends, and while it shall so remain there will be no peace. The events of the past urge us to adopt some measure which shall terminate in favor of freedom that controversy which must ever exist so long as a part of the nation remains free and a part enslaved. . . Let us embrace this opportunity and perform these duties (establish justice and form a more perfect union) with humble confidence that under the guidance of the King of Kings, this revolution will carry the nation onward in the path of prosperity, intelligence, and influence, and upward to a higher level of freedom, civilization, and Christianity, until every man, whether high or low, rich or poor, learned or ignorant, of whatever tribe or race or nation, shall be protected in all the inalienable rights which God has given him, under our national emblem of liberty, union, and power.

A newspaper at this time puts the matter thus: "Perhaps we are prejudiced, but it seems to us that a man who does nothing worse than shed his blood for the old flag, ought not, for so small an offense as that, to be disfranchised like a common thief." Some of the States refused to grant this privilege to soldiers in the field. Governor Seymour of New York vetoed such a bill, and when it was after. wards adopted, it was purposely nullified by allowing their votes to be sent home and cast for them by their nearest friends. Any one may guess how many of them were ever cast, or cast for those for whom they were intended.

The constitutional amendment providing for the extension of the elective franchise to the soldiers in the field, was then adopted in both branches of the Legislature, and after being submitted to the people before the presidential election took place, it was ratified by a majority of 10,000, and the soldiers in the field, whatever might have been their party connections at home, pretty generally voted to sustain the present administration, both State and National. The Springfield Republican, a newspaper remarkably quick to appreciate public sentiment, and sagacious in its forecasts of the future results of such sentiment, says in this connection: "Altogether this election has been a glorious triumph for the Union party of Connecticut, and a very flattering endorsement of Governor Buckingham's administration. Such an endorsement is not to be mistaken." This Union sentiment showed its controlling power when the presidential election came in the autumn. For while the Democrats were appealing for peace, the Republicans were insisting on a more vigorous prosecution of the war. And while the former made abundant use of the fact that the Union had not yet been restored after three years of vigorous fighting, the latter showed how much rebel territory had already been reclaimed, and were more resolute than ever that the rest should be. Although the Peace party in Connecticut was stronger than in any other Northern State, the Republicans had elected more than two-thirds of the House of Representatives in their Legislature, and eighteen out of the twenty-one Senators. And when the two parties came to be represented on the presi dential ticket by Abraham Lincoln and General McClellan, the electoral votes of Connecticut helped to swell that popular majority of 400,000 for Mr. Lincoln.

Efforts had been made from the first to settle the Secession difficulty by negotiation and diplomacy, never so many or so urgent as in these last days of the Confederacy, when