." Wendell
Phillips saw in him "a more unlimited despot than the world knows this
side of China."

Sensitive to such stinging thrusts and no friend of wanton persecution,
Lincoln attempted to mitigate the rigors of the law by paroling many
political prisoners. The general policy, however, he defended in homely
language, very different in tone and meaning from the involved reasoning
of the lawyers. "Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts,
while I must not touch a hair of the wily agitator who induces him to
desert?" he asked in a quiet way of some spokesmen for those who
protested against arresting people for "talking against the war." This
summed up his philosophy. He was engaged in a war to save the union, and
all measures necessary and proper to accomplish that purpose were
warranted by the Constitution which he had sworn to uphold.

=Military Strategy--North and South.=--The broad outlines of military
strategy followed by the commanders of the opposing forces are clear
even to the layman who cannot be expected to master the details of a
campaign or, for that matter, the maneuvers of a single great battle.
The problem for the South was one of defense mainly, though even for
defense swift and paralyzing strokes at the North were later deemed
imperative measures. The problem of the North was, to put it baldly, one
of invasion and conquest. Southern territory had to be invaded and
Southern armies beaten on their own ground or worn down to exhaustion
there.

In the execution of this undertaking, geography, as usual, played a
significant part in the disposition of forces. The Appalachian ranges,
stretching through the Confederacy to Northern Alabama, divided the
campaigns into Eastern and Western enterprises. Both were of signal
importance. Victory in the East promised the capture of the Confederate
capital of Richmond, a stroke of moral worth, hardly to be
overestimated. Victory in the West meant severing the Confederacy and
opening the Mississippi Valley down to the Gulf.

As it turned out, the Western forces accomplished their task first,
vindicating the military powers of union soldiers and shaking the
confidence of opposing commanders. In February, 1862, Grant captured
Fort Donelson on the Tennessee River, rallied wavering unionists in
Kentucky, forced the evacuation of Nashville, and opened the way for two
hundred miles into the Confederacy. At Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Vicksburg,
Chickamauga, Chattano