nada--Sherman's Advance to Atlanta--Fall of Atlanta--Hood's Vain
Attempt to Relieve Georgia--Superb Success of General Thomas--"Marching
Through Georgia"--Sherman's Christmas Gift to President Lincoln--Opening
of Grant's Final Campaign--Battles in the Wilderness--Wounding of
General Longstreet and Deaths of General Stuart and Sedgwick--Grant's
Flanking Movements Against Lee--A Disastrous Repulse at Cold
Harbor--Defeat of Sigel and Hunter in the Shenandoah Valley
--"Bottling-up" of Butler--Explosions of the Petersburg Mine--Early's
Raids--His Final Defeat by Sheridan--Grant's Campaign--Surrender of
Lee--Assassination of President Lincoln--Death of Booth and Punishment
of the Conspirators--Surrender of Jo Johnston and Collapse of the
Southern Confederacy--Capture of Jefferson Davis--His Release and
Death--Statistics of the Civil War--A Characteristic Anecdote.

THE WORK TO BE DONE.

Two grand campaigns remained to be prosecuted to a successful conclusion
before the great Civil War could be ended and the Union restored. The
first and most important was that of General Grant against Richmond, or,
more properly, against Lee, who was still at the head of the unconquered
Army of Northern Virginia, and who must be overcome before the
Confederate capital could fall. The second was the campaign of General
Sherman, through the heart of the Southern Confederacy. Other
interesting and decisive operations were to be pressed, but all were
contributory to the two great ones mentioned.

Several momentous truths had forced themselves upon the national
government. It had learned to comprehend the magnitude of the struggle
before it. Had the North and South possessed equal resources and the
same number of troops, the latter could not have been conquered any more
than the North could have been defeated had the situation been reversed.
But the North possessed men, wealth, and resources immensely beyond
those of the South. The war had made the South an armed camp, with
privation and suffering everywhere, while in the North a person might
have traveled for days and weeks without suspecting that a domestic war
was in progress. It was necessary to overwhelm the South, and the North
had not only the ability to do so, but was resolved that it should be
done. Its estimates were made on the basis of an army of a million men.
Large bounties were offered for soldiers, and, when these did not
provide all that was needed, drafting was resorted to. T