received a
serious blow. Seymour ranked himself as an irreconcilable enemy of the
Administration. The anti-Lincoln Republicans struck at the President in
roundabout ways. Heralding a new attack, the best man on the Committee,
Julian, ironically urged his associates in Congress to "rescue" the
President from his false friends--those mere Unionists who were luring
him away from the party that had elected him, enticing him into a vague
new party that should include "Democrats." It was said that there were
only two Lincoln men in the House.(12) Greeley was coquetting
with Rosecrans, trying to induce him to come forward as Republican
presidential "timber." The Committee in April published an elaborate
report which portrayed the army of the Potomac as an army of heroes
tragically afflicted in the past by the incompetence of their
commanders. The Democrats continued their abuse of the dictator.

It was a moment of strained pause, everybody waiting upon circumstance.
And in Washington, every eye was turned Southward. How soon would they
glimpse the first messenger from that glorious victory which "Fighting
Joe" had promised them. "The enemy is in my power," said he, "and God
Almighty can not deprive me of them."(13)

Something of the difference between Hooker and Lincoln, between all the
Vindictives and Lincoln, may be felt by turning from these ribald words
to that Fast Day Proclamation which this strange statesman issued to his
people, that anxious spring,--that moment of trance as it were--when all
things seemed to tremble toward the last judgment:

"And whereas, it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their
dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and
transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine
repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime
truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that
those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord:

"And insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like
individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this
world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which
now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our
presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a
whole people. We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties
of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and
p